(Jerry Gershenhorn) Melville J. Herskovits Racial - Politics.knowledge

Melville J.
Herskovits and the Racial Politics of Knowledge

Critical Studies in the History of Anthropology
Series Editors
Regna Darnell
Stephen O. Murray
jerry gershenhorn
Melville J. Herskovits
and the Racial Politics
of Knowledge
University of Nebraska Press
Lincoln and London
Copyright 2004 by the University of Nebraska Press
All rights reserved. Manufactured in the United States
of America !
Typeset in CC Galliard. Book design by R. Eckersley
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Gershenhorn, Jerry.
Melville J. Herskovits and the racial politics of knowl-
edge / Jerry Gershenhorn.
p. cm. (Critical studies in the history of anthropology)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
isbn 0-8032-2187-8 (cloth alkaline paper)
1. Herskovits, Melville J. (Melville Jean), 18951963.
2. Anthropologists United States Biography. 3. An-
thropologists Africa, West Biography. 4. African
Americans Anthropometry. 5. African Americans
Social life and customs. 6. Racism in anthropology
United States. 7. Cultural relativism Africa, West.
8. African diaspora. 9. Self-determination, National
Africa, West. 10. Africa, West Social life and customs.
I. Title. II. Series.
gn21 .h47 g47 2004 301%.092dc22 2003016335
In Memory of Rhoda Gershenhorn
Contents
List of Illustrations ix
Series Editors Introduction xi
Acknowledgments xv
Introduction 1
1. The Making of an Anthropologist 11
2. The Attack on Pseudoscientic Racism 27
3. Transforming the Debate on Black Culture 59
4. Subverting the Myth of the Negro Past 93
5. Objectivity and the Development of Negro Studies 123
6. The Postwar Expansion of African Studies 169
7. Foreign Policy Critic 201
Epilogue 231
Notes 241
Bibliography 305
Index 329
Illustrations
1. Herman Herskovits following page 130
2. Franz Boas
3. Melville and Frances Herskovits
4. Herskovits with Suriname artifact
5. Carter G. Woodson
6. Board of Advisors of the Encyclopedia of the
Negro project
7. Ralph Bunche
8. Gunnar Myrdal
9. E. Franklin Frazier
10. Herskovits at Northwestern University
11. Herskovits and J. Roscoe Miller with Liberian
president William V. S. Tubman
12. Frances Herskovits
xi
Series Editors Introduction
M
elville j. herskovits was and remains a controversial
gure in understanding West African and African diasporic
(African American) cultures. Like some other of the later
students of Franz Boas at Columbia, such as his friend Margaret Mead,
Herskovits did some research within the United States but also carried
Boasian cultural relativism and antiracism to analyzing cultural traits and
lifeways beyond the borders of the United States.
Herskovitss dissertation research, like Meads, was library ethnology,
in his case, on cattle complexes in East Africa. He then followed Boas in
using a primary tool of racist science, head-form measurements, to un-
dercut claims about race as a stable category and about a natural hier-
archy of races.
Having completed a major piece of research in what was then called
physical anthropology (and now would be called biological anthro-
pology), Herskovits returned to analysis of cultural traits. The work for
which he is most remembered insisted on the viability of survivals
from what Herskovits considered a homogeneous West African culture.
He visited Dahomey (now Benin) and stressed continuities between the
West African homeland and the diaspora, making observations (though
not doing sustained participant-observation eldwork) in Brazil, Suri-
name, Haiti, Trinidad, and the American South.
The interpretation that African Americans were still to signicant de-
grees African rather than American has, over the years, been welcome to
those maintaining barriers to assimilation, rst to white segregationists,
then to Black Power separatists, that is, both to those seeing people
of African origins as essentially backward and to those seeing spiritual
superiority in an (always singular) African heritage. Although generally
endorsing Herskovitss positions, Jerry Gershenhorn chronicles criticism
xii
from Herskovitss contemporaries during the struggle for black civil
rights.
Herskovits maintained the atomizing focus on cultural traits and try-
ing to sort out the origins of particular traits that was a characteristic
of the research program of Boasians trained before him. His eorts
to identify traits as African or European paralleled those of, for in-
stance, Elsie Clews Parsons trying to sort out what was Spanish and what
indigenous in the cultures of Mesoamerica and South America. Hersko-
vits stressed that acculturation was not one-way, specically that south-
ern (United States) white ways were inuenced by African ways of
speaking, and so forth, but did not make the move from attempting to
sort out historical origins and subsequent movement of traits to holistic,
synchronic analysis of functioning contemporary cultures. He remained
a Boasian of the sort that predated his education rather than focusing
on cultural integration as many of his contemporaries did (functionalists
as well as Boasian contemporaries like Margaret Mead, Ruth Landes,
and their near-contemporary who was also his and their mentor, Ruth
Benedict).
There is ongoing and heated discussion of The Myth of the Negro Past
and Herskovitss claims about African survivals in the New World.
Gershenhorn puts this phase of Herskovitss work in the context of
his earlier work challenging the xity of separate Negro and Caucasian
races in the United States and his later work in building a program of
research on Africa at Northwestern University. That Northwestern was
where Africanists were produced is widely known. Less well known is
how Herskovits blocked from the means of production (publication and
research funding) those not indebted to him or not supporting his posi-
tions (and position of primacy) during the era when area studies was
heavily funded by the U.S. government and foundations (particularly
the Ford Foundation).
Beyond maintaining his primacy as a gatekeeper for Africanist re-
search while wrapping himself in a mantle of objectivity, Herskovits
very much sought to be a public intellectual and to guide U.S. policy
toward Africa. However, he was more successful in gaining and main-
taining control of African studies than he was in directing U.S. foreign
policy. To no apparent eect, he criticized support for colonial and white
supremacist regimes, and he was generally unable to dissuade Cold War-
riors from policymakers conating assertions of African independence
xiii
from incipient siding with the Soviet Union in a bipolar world. The tale
of attempting to inuence policy that Gershenhorn tells is a depressing
one for those who seek to transform expertise about cultures into pol-
icies that take account of realities of dierent ways of understanding the
world instead of sorting everything into Manichean binaries of good
(pro-American) and evil (anti-American).
For the eld of Africanist and Afroamericanist anthropology through
the mid-1960s, Herskovitss network and tactical decisions (including
marginalizing other Boas-trained anthropologists committed to more
intensive eldwork, such as Zora Neale Hurston and Ruth Landes, and
using the rhetoric of objectivity to exclude black scholars) are the
primary narrative of what developed and of obstacles placed in the way
of other developments. Gershenhorns biography provides material
from Herskovitss extensive archive both for celebrating Herskovitss
accomplishments and for questioning the benecence of his dominance
and its legacy.
xv
Acknowledgments
I
t is a pleasure to thank the women and men who provided
assistance in the research and writing of this book. In my research,
I had the good fortune to work with archivists at the North-
western University Archives, the Schomburg Center for Research in
Black Culture, the Rockefeller Archive Center, the Columbia University
Rare Book and Manuscript Library, the Ford Foundation Archives, the
Moorland-Spingarn Research Center, the Library of Congress, and the
National Archives. Without exception, these archivists provided expert
and gracious assistance.
The summer I spent in the Northwestern University Archives was a
successful one in large part due to the assistance of University Archivist
Patrick Quinn and his sta. Former curator of the Melville J. Herskovits
Library of African Studies Hans Panofsky provided me with important
insights into Herskovitss career. The present curator, David East-
erbrook, directed me to some key documents in his own les and other
collections at the library. Since my visit to Northwestern, Janet Olson,
Assistant University Archivist, has graciously responded to my requests
for copies of correspondence from the Herskovits Papers that I had
previously overlooked.
The Rockefeller Archive Center (rac) granted me a fellowship to
conduct research there. Anke Voss-Hubbard of the rac was very helpful
in advising me about the procedures for applying for the fellowship.
Upon my arrival at the rac, she directed me to numerous collections
that related to Herskovits and the foundations activities in black studies
and African studies.
I would like to thank the members of my dissertation committee at the
University of North Carolina at Chapel HillJames Leloudis, Kenneth
Janken, Walter Jackson, Reginald Hildebrand, and Joel Williamsonfor
Acknowledgments
xvi
their encouragement and support of an earlier version of this work.
Walter Jackson suggested the topic and loaned me some of his own
research materials, including tape recordings of interviews he conducted
with colleagues of Herskovits more than twenty years ago. My adviser,
James Leloudis, carefully read numerous drafts of each chapter. His me-
ticulous editing and incisive critique of the style and substance of those
drafts immeasurably improved this work. The term adviser inade-
quately describes his role.
It was my good fortune that Gary Dunham, acquisitions manager of
the University of Nebraska Press, learned of this project, supported it,
and helped shepherd it through to completion. Regna Darnell and Ste-
phen Murray, series editors of the Critical Studies in the History of
Anthropology Series for the University of Nebraska Press, and an anony-
mous reader provided extensive comments and suggestions based on
their careful readings of the manuscript. Their advice has helped me to
strengthen this work in several areas.
I have been fortunate to have supportive colleagues at North Carolina
Central University (nccu), where I received my M.A. and presently
teach in the history department. I thank Freddie Parker, Carlton Wilson,
Lydia Lindsey, Lolita Gutirrez Brockington, J. Ranaldo Lawson, Sylvia
Jacobs, and Jim Harper for their interest, their encouragement, and their
friendship. Fourteen years ago, Percy Murray welcomed me to the grad-
uate program and, as my masters thesis adviser and teacher, smoothed
my transition to the world of historical research and study after a decade
in the business world. His friendship has been one of the great benets of
my decision to embark on a career as a historian.
My greatest debt is to my wife, Barbara Barr. She has lived with this
work for the past seven years, providing just what I needed along the
way. When I needed a sounding board, she listened. When I needed her
intellectual input, she provided keen insights. When I needed emotional
support, she comforted me. My connection with Barbara has also pro-
vided me with another level of support, that of her siblings and her
parents, Dorothy and Dave. Without exception, they expressed interest
and oered encouragement for this project. I am sorry that Dave did not
live to see this book, about which he always asked. Barbaras sister,
Nancy Barr, went beyond the call of familial duty by providing her
expertise in editing the introduction.
My own family also supported and sustained me during the writing of
Acknowledgments
xvii
this book. I thank my brothers, Ira and Alan, for their interest. My sister,
Susan, the rst member of my family to attain a Ph.D., provided an
example of the benets of discipline and persistence. She also consis-
tently encouraged me. I thank my father for his lifelong interest in poli-
tics, which sparked my own. My mother, who died in 1998, was always a
steadfast source of support. I regret that she did not live to see the
publication of this book.
Melville J. Herskovits and the Racial Politics of Knowledge
1
Introduction
It is bad to arrive too quickly at the one or the many.Plato, Philebus
W
e begin the new century like we began the last, debating
the proper approach toward social and political concerns
relating to race and culture. Yet the terms and the nature of
the debate have changed. At the beginning of the twentieth century,
race and culture were generally framed in hierarchical terms, with white
Anglo-Saxon Protestants at the top of the developmental scale. In the
United States, as in much of the rest of the world, white men held
powerful political and social sway; African Americans, in particular, were
subjugated politically, economically, and socially. Abroad, Africans and
Asians suered similarly under Western imperialism. Those who were
nonwhite, non-Western, or female had little voice in global politics or in
the academy. According to mainstream scholars, African culture was
nonexistent, and black American culture was merely a distorted version
of Anglo-American culture.
Today, much has changed. Nationalist movements vanquished West-
ern colonialism in Africa and Asia. In the United States, social move-
ments for civil rights and womens liberation overturned legally sanc-
tioned racial and gender inequities. Scholars now generally reject the
notion of a social hierarchy based on race, gender, or culture. Indeed,
African, African American, and womens studies have emerged as re-
spectable academic subjects. These far-reaching changes, however, have
sparked a new global discourse on race and culture that is fraught with
controversy. In the United States, many of todays political debates are
anchored in culture; political battles and elections are often won or lost
on the basis of cultural questions. Many liberals argue for a national
acceptance and celebration of cultural diversity, a notion that includes
Introduction
2
gender, sexual orientation, phenotype, and religion, along with race and
ethnicity. Advocates of cultural diversity in education and politics have
popularized the term multiculturalism in support of their goals. In this
political climate, many social and cultural groups that long suered from
discrimination now emphasize their group identity to make political and
social gains. Women, African Americans, Latinos, and Native Ameri-
cans, in particular, have asserted their political identities, emphasized the
signicance of cultural heterogeneity, and analyzed the harm caused by
past sociopolitical hierarchies.
Although these strategies have yielded important gains in the United

Statesarmative action policies, civil rights legislation, black studies
programs, womens studies programssome liberals and many conser-
vatives have criticized what they term identity politics for creating
social divisiveness and intolerance toward opposing views.
For exam-
ple, liberal sociologist Todd Gitlin has argued that identity politics has so
fragmented American society that it has limited our capacity to make
a unied attack on poverty and economic inequality throughout the
world.
On the other side, many conservatives and religious fundamen-

talists have attacked identity politics as part of their larger battle against
the immorality of popular culture. In this battle they have decried
armative action, feminism, and reproductive rights; demonized homo-
sexuals; attacked immigration policies; and blamed poverty and crime
on the immoral lifestyles of the poor. Meanwhile, conservatives such as
social critic Dinesh DSouza argue that identity politics has led to intol-
erance for opposing views and an irrational stiing of free speech.
Fi-
nally, conservatives attack multiculturalism and its demonic twin, polit-
ical correctness, as stand-ins for their distaste for liberals emphasis on
minorities rights.
Paralleling this American debate on identity politics is an international

debate on the relative merits of cultural particularism and universalism.
As cultural and ethnic groups in the United States have fought for a
greater voice in politics and society, so have formerly disenfranchised
countries sought to assert their identities in international politics. This
has led to contentious debates about specic cultural rights versus uni-
versal human rights. For example, in the decades since the 1947 adoption
of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights (udhr),
newly independent states in Africa and Asia have challenged the docu-
ments generality. They have argued that the udhr was created with
Introduction
3
limited non-Western input and that it is ethnocentric. Critics nd unten-
able the notion of dening human rights universally, across all cultures.
If cultures create their own values and all cultures are worthy of respect,
how can a single set of human rights be dened and applied?
Thus
contemporary arguments about race and culture have been often po-
larized between those who see cultural politics as destroying common
values and goals and those who see it as safeguarding minority group
interests from the tyranny of the majority.
During the past century many men and women have helped transform
the debates on race and culture from acceptance of racial hierarchy and
imperialism to controversy about identity politics and cultural relativ-
ism. In the early to mid-twentieth century, however, one man in particu-
lar not only challenged the racial and cultural norms of his day but also
envisioned the multiculturalism that was to emerge in the last decades
of the century. From the 1920s to the 1960s American anthropologist
Melville J. Herskovits confronted questions about race and culture in
innovative and groundbreaking ways. Born into a world of racial and
cultural hierarchy, of white supremacy in America and European imperi-
alism in Asia and Africa, Herskovits promulgated the principle that all
cultures deserve respect. In 1948 he asserted that twentieth-century an-
thropologists had made two outstanding contributions to the under-
standing of the human condition. They had ceaselessly combatted the
concept of racial superiority and had documented the essential dignity
of all human cultures.
He could just as easily have made this statement

about himself, for his work as an anthropologist and a social critic under-
mined hierarchical ways of thinking about humanity and underscored
the value of human diversity.
This book is an intellectual biography of Herskovits; it is also a study
of the intersection of his work with racial politics. As Sidney Mintz has
pointed out, Science aspires to stand outside the subjective wishes,
biases, and blind spots of society itself. . . . But what gets studied, when,
and how, are matters that cannot escape the social, economic, and po-
litical climate in which decisions about the place and goals of science
are made.
When Herskovits entered academia in the early 1920s, white

men dominated the creation and dissemination of knowledge. Black
studies and African studies were virtually nonexistent. Herskovits helped
move African American studies and African studies into the academic
mainstream. He supported black and white scholars who sought to
Introduction
4
undertake research on black history and cultures in Africa and the Amer-
icas. At Northwestern University, he established anthropology courses
on African cultures and African American cultures (construed broadly as
the cultures of peoples of African descent throughout the Americas),
and he studied black cultures by focusing on blacks as the subjects, rather
than the objects, of history. Indeed, his focus on the cultures of peoples
of African descent in Africa and the Americas presaged the more recent
conceptualization of the African diaspora. Herskovitss eorts joined
him with the few black colleges and black scholars who were making
eorts to study African Americans and to place blacks at the center
of study.
Herskovits sought to undermine racial and cultural hierarchy through-

out his career. In his earliest work on the physical anthropology of Amer-
ican blacksin the midst of 1920s modernist attacks on Victorian
thoughthe challenged the Victorians understanding of race as a bio-
logical concept. Using anthropometry, the tool that racist scholars had
used to support the notion of a racial hierarchy, Herskovits refuted the
dogma of race as an unchanging category, xed in nature. In The Ameri-
can Negro (1928), Herskovits demonstrated that most American blacks
had both African and European ancestry, but contrary to expectations,
they exhibited very similar physical characteristics. This nding dis-
proved the interpretation of traditional racial theorists, who assumed
that the physical traits of individuals in mixed racial groups would be
marked by great dierences based on the denition of a race as a people
with similar physical characteristics and a common racial ancestry. Hers-
kovitss nding that a mixed-race group was physically homogeneous
rendered the biological denition of race untenable. Indeed, Herskovits
maintained that American blacks, by virtue of their mixed heritage, were
not really a race at all but a mixed population group. Further, he demon-
strated the fallacy of the racist view that mulattoes could not reproduce.
Consequently, Herskovits challenged the biological denition of race
and helped steer scholars toward a more modern conception of race as a
sociological category. By doing so, he undercut the notion that race
determined behavior. Instead, he substituted environment and culture
for race as the explanation for behavioral and intellectual dierences
between individuals. In this way he attacked racial hierarchy and demon-
strated the falsity of intellectual rankings based on race.
Herskovits spent the middle part of his career marshalling evidence to
demonstrate the richness and complexity of African and African Ameri-
Introduction
5
can cultures and the inuence of African culture in the Americas. His eld
trips to Suriname, Dahomey, Haiti, Trinidad, and Brazil convinced him
of the important manifestations of African culture in the Americas, which
he, like many other liberal scholars, had initially rejected due to an assimi-
lationist bias. In his ethnographies and in his magnum opus, The Myth of
the Negro Past, Herskovits challenged those who maligned black culture
and African culture, including black and white liberal scholars who ar-
gued that black American culture was a pathological version of white
culture with little or no African inuence. The contrasting positions
taken by Herskovits and his critics brought into sharp relief the debate
over the nature of black culture. At a time when most white Americans
assumed black Americans to be inferior as a race and a culture, Hersko-
vitss establishment of the strength and complexity of African and
African-inuenced cultures was a great intellectual achievement.
Prominent liberal scholars, black and white, rejected Herskovitss con-

clusions about black American culture because they disavowed the exis-
tence of a distinctive black American culture. Moreover, they rejected
Herskovitss argument that recognition of the complexity and strength
of ancestral African cultures would ameliorate race prejudice against
African Americans. Instead, they maintained that by providing evidence
of dierences between black and white culture, Herskovits was furnish-
ing support for those who would justify segregation of the races on the
basis that blacks were incapable of assimilating into mainstream Ameri-
can culture.
Herskovits countered this position by insisting that black

assimilation into American culture and preservation of the African heri-
tage were not mutually exclusive. Nor was acculturation a one-way
street. Just as blacks had been inuenced by white American culture, so
had black culture, with its African-inuenced cultural traits, contributed
to white American culture. Herskovits maintained that African Ameri-
cans were just like other folk in their ability to assimilate what is new to
them and to give of their aboriginal endowments to those with whom
they have come into contact.
During these years Herskovits convinced anthropologists to accept

acculturation studies as a vital part of the discipline, pushing anthropo-
logical study beyond its traditional focus on isolated, nonliterate so-
cieties. He laid the foundation for a dynamic view of cultural change that
emphasized cultural diversity and cultural pluralism. At the same time,
by providing evidence of the diverse inuences on American culture,
Herskovits helped transform notions of American identity from exclu-
Introduction
6
sive and unitary (white Anglo-Saxon Protestant) to inclusive and plural-
ist. Herskovitss cultural relativismthe belief that cultures could not be
ranked in a developmental hierarchyunderpinned his leadership in
acculturation studies and thrust him into the middle of a philosophical
debate among intellectuals. As an anthropologist and public intellectual,
Herskovits argued for mutual respect among cultures and attacked eth-
nocentric evaluations of cultures.
After the Second World War Herskovitss expertise and interest in the
expansion of African studies made him a key force in the development of
African studies programs. American involvement in the Second World
War and the Cold War induced policymakers to call for the creation of
area studies programs to provide experts so that the United States could
implement policies to serve its global interests. In this context, Hersko-
vits established the rst major interdisciplinary African studies program
in America in 1948. In 1957 he played a pivotal role in the founding of
the African Studies Association and served as its rst president. Hersko-
vitss support for African studies helped ensure that Africa would be-
come a legitimate area of academic study.
In his later years Herskovits moved to the political stage to argue for a
voice for Africans in their own, and the worlds, aairs. The combination
of Herskovitss own views and the requirements of the Second World
War, which broke down the barriers between government and social sci-
ence, propelled him into the role of social critic. As the foremost Africa-
nist in the country, he felt compelled to eschew his previous stand against
activist scholarship. He entered foreign policy debates as a strong critic of
Americas Africa policy and an advocate of African self-determination.
Herskovits lobbied the U.S. government to support the independence of
Africa and help bring an end to white supremacy regimes on the con-
tinent. In 1947 he wrote the American Anthropological Associations
Statement on Human Rights that was submitted to the United Nations,
advising against an ethnocentric formulation of human rights. He sought
to safeguard developing nations by ensuring that a statement of human
rights based on Western values would not be imposed upon them.
Although he beneted from the rise of African studies, Herskovits crit-
icized the Cold War assumptions on which that development was based.
He challenged the Cold War paradigm by advising policymakers to reject
considering African countries as merely objects in the Soviet-American
battle for global hegemony. As a policy analyst and impresario of African
studies, Herskovits stressed the necessity for African self-determination
Introduction
7
and decolonization. But American policymakers generally rejected Hers-
kovitss advice to deal with Africa on its own terms. They formulated
policy with Africa based on the assumption that the continent was a Cold
War battleground between the United States and the Soviet Union and
refused to include Africans in the decision-making process. According
to Herskovits, a collaborative process between Americans and Africans
would advance U.S.-African relations, serve Americas foreign policy in-
terests, and improve life in Africa. In ignoring Herskovitss advice, Amer-
ican policymakers undermined African political and economic develop-
ment. Herskovitss contributions to black studies, African studies, and
modern notions of cultural pluralism made him a key gure in twentieth-
century intellectual discourse.
Several scholars have made valuable contributions to the Herskovits
story. In 1973 the anthropologist George E. Simpson published a brief
biography with selected articles by Herskovits. Simpsons book empha-
sized Herskovitss contributions to anthropological study: his seminal
work in African and New World Negro anthropology and his research in
economic and physical anthropology, ethnopsychology, anthropological
theory, and folklore.
Simpson, however, did not attempt to place Hers-

kovitss work in its larger historical context.
In 1994 folklorist Robert Baron wrote Africa in the Americas: Mel-
ville J. Herskovits Folkloristic and Anthropological Scholarship, 1923
1941, the rst dissertation on Herskovits. Baron sought to alter the view
of Herskovits as obsessed with a search for African survivals in black
American cultures. Instead, he emphasized Herskovitss views on the
dynamism of culture, on its responsiveness to internal and external inu-
ences. In an in-depth analysis of Herskovitss eldwork and writings,
Baron traced the development of Herskovitss ideas about acculturation
from the early 1920s to his 1941 publication of The Myth of the Negro Past.
Baron argued that Herskovits was interested in diverse inuences on
African American cultures, in addition to the creativity of black peoples
in adapting their cultures to these inuences. Baron viewed folklore as
the centerpiece of Herskovitss work on African diaspora cultures. He
maintained that Herskovits reconciled particularism and universalism by
focusing attention on the unique characteristics of African American
cultures while recognizing that blacks assimilated aspects of mainstream
American culture when given the opportunity to do so.
Introduction
8
Walter Jackson, who has written the most extensive historical account
of Herskovitss preWorld War II writings, highlighted Herskovitss
cultural particularism in his research on black cultures in the Americas.
Jackson chronicled Herskovitss change from an assimilationist perspec-
tive on black culture to a pluralist view that emphasized the inuence of
African cultures. Based on extensive research into Herskovitss papers
and publications, Jackson traced Herskovitss career from the 1920s to
the 1940s in the context of contemporary debates among anthropolo-
gists about method and purpose. Jackson argued that Herskovitss inter-
pretation of black cultures was grounded in his ethnographic research,
his ethnic identity, the inuence of Harlem Renaissance writers, and the
inuence of his mentor, Franz Boas.
Historians Kenneth Janken and Robert L. Harris Jr. have criticized

Herskovitss institutional role in the development of black studies. They
reproved Herskovits for his failure to help integrate African-American
scholars into the mainstream during his tenure as chair of the American
Council of Learned Societies Committee on Negro Studies. They ar-
gued that Herskovits limited black participation so that he could side-
track a proposal to challenge racial discrimination against black scholars
in academia and in the use of historical archives.
Despite these valuable works, they do not add up to a fully integrated

story. Past scholarship has focused on Herskovitss role as a champion of
African survivals in black culture, a contributor to anthropological and
folkloristic methodology, a trailblazer in African studies, or a paternalist
who marginalized blacks in academia. Historians and anthropologists
have concentrated on Herskovitss preWorld War II research, empha-
sizing his search for evidence of African culture in the Americas and the
summation of that work in The Myth of the Negro Past. A number of
anthropologists have stressed Herskovitss contributions to anthropol-
ogy and folklore. By contrast, little has been written about Herskovitss
postWorld War II promotion of African studies and his critique of
American policy toward Africa during the Cold War. Because scholars
have limited themselves to examining portions or aspects of Herskovitss
work, we have only a partial understanding of his impact on racial and
cultural discourse.
This book is the rst attempt by a historian to comprehend Hersko-
vitss entire professional career, from his graduate study at Columbia
University in the early 1920s to his death in 1963. It is intended to ll the
Introduction
9
gap in scholarship on Herskovits by examining his entire intellectual
career from a historical perspective. Based on extensive research in the
Herskovits papers, Herskovitss publications, and related manuscript
collections and writings, I argue that Herskovitss work on Africans and
African Americans is inextricably connected by his embrace of cultural
relativism, his attack on racial and cultural hierarchy, and his conceptual-
ization of Negro studies, which he dened as the study of peoples of
African descent on both sides of the Atlantic. Furthermore, Herskovitss
work during his early and late career was designed to accord dignity to all
cultures; he maintained that marginalized peoples were worthy of study
in higher education and consideration in politics.
Herskovitss work was marked by tension as he shaped and was
shaped by the context in which he worked. He sought to liberate con-
temporary scholarship from outmoded ways of thinking as he tried to
liberate himself from traditional views and methodologies. In his early
physical anthropology study of American blacks, he sought to under-
mine the use of race as a biological concept, but he never completely
rejected its use in biological terms. In fact, he inadvertently reinforced
the race concept by continuing to employ physical measurements in his
research.
Herskovitss institutional role in the development of black studies was
also characterized by tension. As an anthropologist coming of age during
the 1920s, Herskovits sought to employ the authority of scientic objec-
tivity and detached scholarship to counter pseudoscientic racism and
advance black studies by empowering the subjects of his researchblack
peopleas creators of their own culture. Thus, while he championed
the view that an objective scholar must eschew social activism in ones
scholarship, Herskovitss own work was designed to correct previous
scholarship that upheld racial and cultural hierarchy and to underscore
the need for tolerance of all cultures. Although this objectivist stance
served his cause well at the time, it later placed him in a conservative role,
especially when he gained inuence with the philanthropic foundations
that played a large part in nancing social science research. During the
1930s and 1940s, as an adviser to the Social Science Research Council,
the American Council of Learned Societies, and the Rockefeller Founda-
tion, Herskovitss strict advocacy of detached scholarship served to side-
track important eorts to help African American scholars surmount ra-
cial discrimination in academia. At times, he also used his power with the
Introduction
10
foundations to try to stop black colleges and scholars from undertaking
research in areas of mutual interest. Although Herskovits often sup-
ported the work of black scholars, like Ralph Bunche and Johnnetta B.
Cole, he criticized certain activist black scholarsnotably Carter G.
Woodson and W. E. B. Du Boiswho he considered propagandists
rather than scientists because of their social-reform orientations. By con-
sistently promoting the benets of detached scholarship without regard
to social-reform goals, Herskovits denied the political nature of scholarly
inquiry. Indeed, he failed to admit that his own egalitarian values and
assumptions inuenced his work. Thus his institutional impact on the
development of black studies was mixed. While he generally acted to
include black studies, black scholars, and black students in the main-
stream of academia, at times he hindered progress toward that goal.
The tension in all of Herskovitss work is largely derived from the way
he tried to balance universalism and particularism. In his dependence on
scientic inquiry to help him subvert the eects of racism on cultural
anthropology, he embraced objective scholarship as a universal truth. In
his eldwork, however, Herskovits upheld a particularistic perspective
evidenced by his pluralist view of culture. His beliefs in egalitarianism
and cultural relativism convinced him to reject racial hierarchies, to op-
pose the notion of universal values, and to argue that no outsider could
objectively evaluate another culture. Throughout his career Herskovits
assumed a challenging and tension-inducing position that sought to
combine a belief in science as a unifying force for humanity with a plural-
ist conception of culture.
In 1993 Johnnetta B. Cole, former president of Spelman College in
Atlanta, recalled the liberating feelings inspired by her rst reading of
Herskovitss The Myth of the Negro Past forty years earlier. Cole, a gradu-
ate student in anthropology under Herskovits during the 1950s and
1960s, explained that the book armed how terribly human was the
African American experience.
She remembered gasping with shock

and joy over what I learned there. . . . [F]orty years ago such thinking
[on the African cultural inuence in America] was revolutionaryand
even heretical.
In fact, much of Herskovitss work was revolutionary.

Through his research, writing, and teaching, he dignied the lives and
struggles of peoples of African descent on both sides of the Atlantic.
11
chapter one
The Making of an Anthropologist
There are times when mans entire way of apprehending and structuring the
universe is transformed in a fairly brief period of time, and the decades which
preceded the First World War were one of these.Eric J. Hobsbawm, The
Age of Empire, 18751914
M
elville herskovits was born in 1895 and grew up dur-
ing a time of tremendous intellectual and cultural change in
American society. The period from the 1890s to the 1910s
Herskovitss childhood yearsmarked a watershed in American history,
with Victorian ideas and social conventions under attack and a skeptical
modernist ethic on the rise. Grounded in strict gender, race, and class
divisions, Victorian culture valued xed notions of social role and hier-
archy.
While intellectuals during the Victorian age stressed the [imper-

meable] barrier between civilization and savagery, between the cultured
and the uncultured, modernists emphasized the uidity, change, and
unpredictability of culture, society, and politics.
Coming of age during this period of social transition, Herskovitss

multilayered background inclined him toward a modernist perspective.
His experience as an assimilated Jew growing up in small-town America,
his youthful pursuit and ultimate rejection of rabbinical study, and his
overseas service during World War I alienated him from Victorian cer-
tainties and likely drew him toward anthropology and a modernist ap-
proach.
The son of Jewish immigrantshis father was born in 1853 in

Hungary, his mother in 1861 in GermanyHerskovits grew up in a
household that celebrated both Jewish and Christian holidays, accom-
modating Jewish tradition to mainstream American culture. While the
Herskovitses ate special dinners on Christmas and Easter, they also post-
poned young Melvilles birthday party when it fell on the same day as the
12
Jewish New Year celebration of Rosh Hashanah. Herskovits also at-
tended Hebrew school beginning in 1906, perhaps in preparation for his
Bar Mitzvah.
During Melvilles childhood, the Herskovits family lived

in medium-sized towns and cities with relatively small Jewish popula-
tions and followed the cultural and economic path of mid-nineteenth-
century German Jewish immigrants, who by the late nineteenth century
had become signicantly acculturated. This was reected in their rapid
economic and social mobility, their institutionalization of Reform Ju-
daism, and the intensication of their collective identity as Americans
and Jews.
While Herskovitss father, Herman, a clothing merchant, provided for

the familys material needs, Herskovitss mother, Henrietta, imparted
her love for cultural pursuits to her two children, Melville and his older
sister, Charlotte. In her diary, Henrietta recorded the following words
that she attributed to the great German poet Goethe: Let not a day pass,
if possible, without having heard some ne music, read a noble poem, or
seen a beautiful picture.
While Charlottewho later attended the Cin-

cinnati Conservatory of Musicstudied piano, Melville began violin
lessons at age six and piano lessons when he was ten. An undated news
clipping recorded what was probably his rst violin recital: The little
round, chubby Herskovits boy of six years, everyone felt like hugging as
he made those tones with the utmost accuracy.
Herskovitss early devotion to music was matched by his love of books.

An undated news clipping with the salutation Dear Santa Claus, signed
Your little friend Melville Herskovits, reads as follows: If you cant
bring me very much please be sure and dont forget to give me a nice real
thick book with lots of reading and pictures in it, but dont let the words
in it be too big, because I am just six years old and have just started to
school.
For his ninth birthday, at a party with sixty children, Melville

received twenty-ve books, among other gifts.
Henriettas poor health due to tuberculosis induced the family to

move from Bellefontaine, Ohio, to El Paso, Texas, when Melville was
about ten. After Henriettas death in 1911, the family moved to Erie,
Pennsylvania, where Melville graduated from high school the following
year. Undecided about his future, Melville worked at his fathers clothing
store until 1915.
Growing up in an assimilated Jewish family in predominantly Protes-

tant small towns meant that Herskovits was constantly faced with ques-
13
tions about his identity and his place in American society. His sensitivity
to these questions foreshadowed his interests in cultural change as a
student, teacher, and practitioner of anthropology. Reecting the desire
of many minorities to minimize their dierences from the mainstream,
in 1927 Herskovits wrote that the Jew has ever taken on the color of the
culture in which he lives, and far from identifying himself with his own
typical culture (whatever there may be of it) he usually tries to become as
completely acculturated as is possible to the culture in which he nds
himself.
This attempt to minimize his own cultural dierences was

based on his knowledge that in the United States, Jews were considered
an inferior group.
Of his own identity, he insisted that neither in

training, in tradition, in religious beliefs, nor in culture am I what might
be termed a person any more Jewish than any other American born and
reared in a typical Middle Western milieu.
It is important to note that

Herskovits wrote these words during a period of historically high levels
of anti-Semitism in the United States.
Nonetheless, Herskovitss attempts to minimize the signicance of his

own Jewishness do not square with his youthful experience. As a child he
attended Hebrew school and synagogue, and as a young man he pursued
rabbinical study at Hebrew Union College, based on his fathers recom-
mendation.
During his rabbinical study, Herskovits experienced a cri-

sis of faith when he began to doubt his belief in God. Although some of
his friends advised him to continue his studies by telling him that Juda-
ism was an elastic faith that could abide many beliefs, even agnosticism,
Herskovits ended his rabbinical studies.
After attending the University of Cincinnati and Hebrew Union Col-

lege for two and a half years, Herskovits enlisted in the U.S. Army
Medical Corps in 1918 following the United Statess entrance in the First
World War. Subsequent to the signing of the armistice in November
1918, but before returning stateside, Herskovits studied French history
at the University of Poitiers, where he also served on the editorial sta of
the student newspaper. Meanwhile, his months of study earned him a
certication to teach French to non-French speakers.
Upon his return to the United States, Herskovits transferred to the

University of Chicago, where he majored in history. This move to Chi-
cago suggests that the young veteran now sought a more cosmopolitan
milieu following his service in Europe.
In addition to his history

14
courses, Herskovits took several courses in Russian, reecting an emerg-
ing interest in Communism and the recent Bolshevik Revolution.
In Chicago Herskovits embraced radical politics, self-reliance, and the

intellectual life. Rejecting his fathers oer of nancial assistance, the
young man declared his intention to support himself as a matter of
principle. Although postwar ination had caused him nancial hardship,
he asserted that continued ination would inspire him to put more zeal
in my small eorts to establish a [political] regime that will make [cor-
porate] proteering impossible. Meanwhile, Herskovits contributed to
a cooperative bookstore by putting aside fteen cents a day, which also
permitted him to purchase books there.
Reecting his leftist politics in

a letter to the editor of the American Jewish Review, he castigated a leader
of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations for failing to take a
strong prolabor position.
During Herskovitss college years, Jews faced increasing anti-Semi-

tism, with the imposition of quotas and other measures to reduce the
number of Jews at many American universities, including Princeton,
Duke, Yale, Harvard, Northwestern, and Columbia. Harvard president
A. Lawrence Lowell, an ocer of the Immigration Restriction League,
cut Jewish enrollment based on his belief that Harvard had a Jewish
problemtoo many Jewish students. In 1917 Columbia University
enacted new admissions policies, which in four years reduced Jewish
students from 40 to 22 percent of the student population.
In this climate of rising bigotry, Herskovits directly confronted anti-

Semitism at the University of Chicago. After the leaders of a student
social club made plans to hold separate dances for Jews and Gentiles and
hurled epithets at Jewish club members, Herskovits wrote a scathing
letter to the editor of the school newspaper and resigned from the club.
Upon graduating from the University of Chicago, Herskovits moved

to New Yorkperhaps the most modernist city in Americato pur-
sue graduate study. During the 1920s New York was home to many of
the leading modernist writers, artists, and musicians, including Sinclair
Lewis, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Langston Hughes, and Duke Elling-
ton.
Lewis satirized middle-class conformity and consumerism in Bab-

bitt. Millays poems embraced womens sexual freedom and equality.
Hughes celebrated black cultural contributions such as jazz and the blues.
Ellington was perhaps the foremost composer in the history of jazz.
In New York Herskovits joined a veritable modernist crusade to over-

15
turn Victorian certainty, hierarchical thinking, and biological determin-
ism. Urbanization had created a new generation of intellectuals that
included African Americans and the children of immigrants, as well as
those of old-stock Americans. Separated from their small-town roots,
they rejected traditional middle-class values such as social conformity,
moral rigidity, and excessive piety. Disillusioned by the devastation of
the First World War, these young people were poised to deliver the coup
de grce to Victorian authority.
Liberation and rebellion were in the

air. These were heady times for men and women who saw themselves as
part of an intellectual vanguard.
Initially, Herskovits studied at the New School for Social Research

the rare school that welcomed Jewish studentsarriving there just one
year after it opened in 1919. Embracing radical politics, Herskovits
was attracted by the alternative brand of education oered at the New
School. Its scholars, including such luminaries as John Dewey, Horace
Kallen, Alexander Goldenweiser, Charles Beard, and Thorstein Veblen,
sought to generate a body of critical social science that would contrib-
ute to the reconstruction of western society along more egalitarian and
scientic lines.
Disaected by conservative values that supported laissez-faire eco-

nomic ideology and racial, gender, and cultural hierarchy, Herskovits,
like many young intellectuals, denounced capitalism and was drawn to
radical organizations.
By now a self-described political leftist, Hersko-

vits indicted the Republican Party in 1920 for staunch, unerring stu-
pidity.
Meanwhile, he briey joined the Industrial Workers of the

World (iww) and later published articles in H. L. Menckens American
Mercury, the preeminent medium for the attack on traditional middle-
class beliefs.
Herskovitss cohort was inuenced by a number of revolutionary

thinkers who established the relative nature of the physical world. Albert
Einstein discovered that time and space were not immutable. Rather,
they were contingent on the observers viewpoint. In his research on
immigrants and their children, Franz Boas marshaled evidence that head
shape changed from generation to generation. By doing so, he under-
mined the notion of xed racial traits. This physical relativism inuenced
modernists toward a relativist perspective about human endeavor.
Herskovitss leftist political views and his sympathy for the union
movement inuenced his choice of subject for his masters thesis in
16
political science at Columbia University. In An Inquiry into the Causes
Determining the Arrest of Persons Active in Labor Unions in the United
States, Herskovits examined the arrests of several labor leaders from
1917 to 1919, a period that saw a great upsurge in labor activism and
strikes and, in reaction, severe government repression.
In one of these
cases, American Legionnaires attacked an iww union hall in Centralia,
Washingtona lumber townand lynched one of the Wobblies, as
members of the iww were known. The surviving Wobblies were tried
and convicted of killing two of the Legionnaires during the attack. Based
on his study of legal briefs, political pamphlets and leaets, newspaper
and magazine articles, and the les of the American Civil Liberties
Union, Herskovits concluded that labor activists, like the Centralia
Wobblies, were arrested and prosecuted because of pressure from busi-
nessmen interested in protecting their economic interests.
In a more
recent analysis of this period, labor historian Melvyn Dubofsky con-
curred with Herskovitss conclusions, writing that the Centralia case
indicated the lengths to which public authorities would go to destroy
the iww.
During this period Herskovits befriended a group of like-minded in-

dividuals who were interested in art, music, and literature and who
embraced gender and racial equality and radical politics. This group
included future anthropologists Ruth Benedict, whom Herskovits met
at the New School, Margaret Mead, and A. Irving Hallowell; future
sociologist Malcolm Willey; and Herskovitss future wife, Frances Sha-
piro (18971972). Frances, the daughter of Russian Jewish immigrants,
was born in Minsk, Russia. An aspiring writer, she studied at the New
School and briey lived in Paris. She and Melville were married in July
1924 in Paris during Melvilles rst research trip.
In New York the

young married couple lived in an attractive and bohemian apartment
near Columbia.
Following the completion of his M.A. degree, Herskovits pursued the

study of anthropology at Columbia under Franz Boas, who would have a
profound eect on the young mans career. Herskovitss transition to
anthropology was inuenced by two of his New School professors, econ-
omist Thorstein Veblen, who encouraged Herskovits to read in the
literature on nonliterate cultures, and anthropologist Alexander Gold-
enweiser, a former Boas student who recommended that Herskovits
study with Boas.
Herskovitss shift in disciplines paralleled that of many

17
others who studied with Boas.
Disillusioned with industrial society,

Herskovits and his Columbia classmates, most notably Margaret Mead
and Ruth Benedict, were attracted to the study of non-Western cultures
and the possibilities they oered for alternate forms of social organiza-
tion and creative expression. Recalling those years, Mead remembered
Herskovits as a bouncing, cheerful, unsquelchable extrovert, writing
with gusto, and a fair pride in what he produced. Herskovits was con-
dent that he would achieve great success as an anthropologist. At a
dinner in Chinatown, he told friends, I dont expect to be a Boas, but I
do expect to be a [Robert] Lowie or an [William] Ogburn.
Boas, who trained most of the inuential American cultural anthro-

pologists of the early twentieth century, had an enormous intellectual
inuence on Herskovits. By the early 1920s when Herskovits attended
Columbia, Boas and his students, notably, Alexander Kroeber, Robert
Lowie, Edward Sapir, Alexander Goldenweiser, and Paul Radin, had
transformed American anthropology. Although Boas and his students
sometimes disagreed, certain characteristics unied the group. As Regna
Darnell has observed, they shared a heady sense of solidarity, viewing
themselves as rewriting the history of anthropology, creating a profes-
sionally respectable and scientically rigorous discipline whose practi-
tioners were loyal to a common enterprise.
They also endorsed the

Boasian interpretation of culture, which diered from previous notions
of culture that equated it with civilization. For the Boasians, culture was
plural. Therefore they rejected the notion of culture as evolutionary, with
race, culture, and language dependent on each other. Rather, the latter
three were independent of each other.
Similarly, Boas rejected the idea

that the Nordic (northern European) race was the most evolved race.
He disputed racial hierarchy, questioning the practice wherein a race is
commonly described as the lower, the more fundamentally it diers from
our own.
According to Boass culture conceptwhich replaced the race con-

cept as an explanation for human behavioral dierencesenvironmen-
tal and cultural inuences were the primary determinants of behavior
and intelligence; they were not predetermined by racial endowment.
Leading the intellectual movement against Victorian notions of racial
hierarchy and pseudoscientic racism, Boas sought to move anthropol-
ogy away from its emphasis on racially determined behavior toward a
more complex view that emphasized the environmental impact on hu-
18
man behavior and culture. He led the eort of natural and social sci-
entists to debunk notions of white genetic superiority that had been
proven by an earlier generation of Victorian anthropologists and biol-
ogists. Therefore Boas encouraged his students to concentrate on small
geographic regions to more eectively examine the environmental and
psychological causes of cultural change.
Prior to the emergence of Boas and other modernists, scientic

racism dominated the intellectual worldview. Anthropologys develop-
ment as a professional eld of study during the late nineteenth century
coincided with the political, economic, and social oppression of African
Americans and Native Americans and the rapid expansion of European
imperialism in Africa and Asia. Operating within this milieu, most an-
thropologists accepted the popular notion of a racial hierarchy and
sought to employ science to prove popular views. Moreover, scientic
support served to harden racist beliefs. During the late nineteenth cen-
tury Social Darwinism and its view of evolutionary human development
provided a theoretical construct in support of racial hierarchy. Herbert
Spencer (18201903), the leading advocate of Social Darwinism, main-
tained that Darwins natural selection took place among humanity as a
struggle between unequal nations, classes, and races. Spencer rejected
human equality based on his belief that the various racial groups were at
dierent evolutionary stages. His ideas on racial hierarchy were widely
accepted by Americas top scholars. Within this perspective, physical
anthropologists devoted themselves to the taxonomy of race based on
particular visible physical traits, known as phenotype. Biologists also
classied humanity into dierent races. Social scientists assumed the
superiority of Western civilization and the inferiority of primitive cul-
tures from which the West had evolved. These scientists and social scien-
tists arranged the races in a hierarchy according to which was the most
civilized and intelligent.
Dening a race as a large segment of humanity that shared similar

physical characteristics, scientists employed dierent physical measure-
ments and correlated these with qualitative criteria in their attempts
to categorize humanity into dierent races. Sorting humanity into races
through the measurement of various physical characteristics was the pri-
mary purpose of scholars engaged in anthropometry, a subeld of physi-
cal anthropology. Quite often, scientists ranked the races based on
preconceived notions, with Europeans at the top and Negroes at the
19
bottom. Foreshadowing the eorts of later scientists, eighteenth-century
German anatomist Peter Camper had classied races based on dierences
in facial angle, which he dened as the angle that an imaginary line
from the bottom of the chin to the top of the forehead forms with a hori-
zontal line at the bottom of the chin. Camper maintained that the higher
races were characterized by perpendicular faces (orthognathous), while
the lower races evidenced sloping faces and protruding jaws (progna-
thous). Camper argued that Negroes . . . were the most prognathous of
races and therefore the lowest.
During the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries scientists con-

tinued to employ various head measurements to categorize and rank the
races, despite inconsistent results. In the mid-nineteenth century Swed-
ish scientist Anders Retzius and his follower, French scientist Paul Broca,
devised methods of measuring and comparing human heads and skulls
to rank the races based on qualitative dierences, usually in terms of
superior or inferior intelligence. These scientists sought criteria that
t their assumptions of European superiority and African inferiority.
During the 1840s Retzius rst employed the cranial index, the ratio
between head length and head width, to classify the races and asserted
that long-headed (dolichocephalic) peoples were more civilized than
short-headed (brachycephalic) peoples.
When anthropometric measurements failed to support the presumed

racial hierarchy, scientists tried dierent measurements or rationalized
the results instead of rejecting their assumptions. Broca did both. When
he discovered that, because the human skull is irregularly shaped, human
skull measurements varied according to who was doing the measuring,
Broca stopped measuring heads and began comparing brain weight.
In
1861 he wrote, In general, the brain is larger in mature adults than in the
elderly, in men than in women, in eminent men than in men of mediocre
talent, in superior races than in inferior races.
Broca also linked facial

angle, skin color, hair, and intelligence, arguing that more or less white
skin, straight hair and an orthognathous [straight] face are the ordinary
equipment of the highest groups in the human series. On the other
hand, Broca asserted that a group with black skin, wooly hair and a
prognathous [forward-jutting] face has never been able to raise itself
spontaneously to civilization.
In his analysis of Brocas studies, Ste-

phen J. Gould demonstrated that when Brocas expectations of race, class,
or gender hierarchy were not borne out by his research, he would ra-
20
tionalize the discrepancies or adjust the gures. For example, when Broca
found that German brains weighed more than French brains (Broca was
French), he adjusted the weights of the German brains downward due to
their relatively larger body size. Brocas use of rationalization to ensure
that his data t his theory was not unusual among physical anthropolo-
gists during this period.
Brain studies continued despite the inconsistent results. In his 1906

study comparing three hundred brains of whites and blacks, Johns Hop-
kins University anatomist Robert Bennett Bean found that Negroes
brains had smaller frontal lobes relative to the posterior lobes. Franklin
Mall, a colleague of Beans, however, weighed the same brains and found
no signicant racial dierences.
This emphasis on measuring head shape and brain size in order to

establish white racial superiority continued undisturbed until Franz Boas
challenged the traditional view. Just as anthropologists had played a key
role in legitimating the nineteenth-century orthodoxy of white racial
superiority, so in the early twentieth century a new generation of anthro-
pologists, led by Boas, attacked the notion of a racial hierarchy grounded
in nature. Anthropologists played the key role in redening the way
social scientists approached race and race relations.
In his attack on pseudoscientic racism, Boas was inuenced by his
liberal philosophy, his strict attachment to scientic accuracy, and, per-
haps most important, his Jewish identity. Boass liberalism sensitized him
to the inequities caused by racism. Anthropologist William S. Willis
observed that the intensity of Boass politics and its inuence on his
scholarship were demonstrated in 1919 by his admission . . . that the
only relief was to explode periodically in print and then he felt a little
better for a while!
As a scientist who could not bear generalizations

based on inaccurate data, the pseudoscientic work of racist anthropolo-
gists appalled him.
Finally, as a German Jewish immigrant, Boas identi-

ed with the plight of African Americans. In Germany he had been the
victim of anti-Semitism leading to his decision to migrate to the United
States, where he endured outsider status as an immigrant and a Jew.
By
attacking racist science, which concluded that blacks were inferior to
whites, Boas was also able to mount an indirect challenge to the anti-
Semitic belief that Jews were an inferior race.
Several writers have commented on the propensity of Jews during
this period to ght anti-Semitism indirectly by attacking racist discrimi-
21
nation against African Americans. During the rst decades of the twen-
tieth century both Jews and African Americans faced discrimination,
albeit of dierent magnitude, from racist and nativist groups. This fact
joined blacks and Jews in opposition to their common enemies. But as
Hasia Diner has pointed out, Jewish organizations rarely attacked anti-
Semitism in public because they feared that too much discussion of the
subject might stimulate anti-Jewish sentiment where it had not yet ap-
peared.
Thus, as David L. Lewis has observed, Jews often supported

civil rights for African Americans and attacked racist theories to ght
against anti-Semitism by remote control.
It was no coincidence that

many of the scholars who joined with Boas to attack racial hierarchy
were also Jewish, including Otto Klineberg, Ashley Montagu, Alexander
Goldenweiser, and Herskovits. Boas acknowledged this fact in a 1934
speech, noting that much of the important research on race was the
product of Jewish students and scholars.
Like his mentor, Herskovitss Jewish heritage made him sensitive to

his own outsider status and that of African Americans. David Man-
delbaum, a Herskovits student, has observed that Jews, are, in a sense,
born ethnologists. Like African Americans and other marginal groups,
Jews possess a dual consciousness, as Jews and as part of the larger
society.
And as a Jew who grew up in predominantly Christian small

towns, Herskovits felt this outsider status with keen intensity. Moreover,
in New York in 1925, the Herskovitses felt the sting of anti-Semitism
when they were unable to sublet Margaret Meads apartment for the
summer because of the landlords refusal to rent to Jews.
This ex-
perience, one that was common for Jews and, more so, for African Amer-
icans, reinforced Herskovitss empathy with African Americans and
helped shape the views he articulated in a 1927 article on Jewish identity.
He maintained that part of the common cultural tradition of Jews was
the feeling which is ground into every Jew from the time he is old
enough to realize that he is somebody dierent from the people about
him. Consequently, all Jews have much the same . . . feeling that they
are dierent from their neighbors. Herskovits believed that Jews and
blacks were connected by their common experience of being considered
dierent, or inferior, or something to be disdained.
Boass attack on the concept of race as a category xed in nature reached

its high point in reaction to the rising nativism before, during, and after
22
the First World War. Nativism and its correlate, immigration restriction,
gained great popular support in reaction to the millions of immigrants
who came to America between 1880 and 1920. Nativists (mostly native-
born white Protestants) felt threatened by the inux of Jews and Catho-
lics from eastern and southern Europe. During World War I fears of
disloyal foreigners in the service of Americas enemies increased xeno-
phobia. After the war nativist feelings peaked in reaction to a wave of
strikes and a series of bombings of public ocials. Based on their belief
that foreign-born anarchists, communists, and unionists caused these
disruptions, nativists sought to deport foreigners and end immigra-
tion from southern and eastern Europe. This nativist climate gave rise
to racist justications for immigration restriction. The Passing of the
Great Race (1916), written by Madison Grant, a longtime ocial of the
Immigration Restriction League, enjoyed great popularity during the
1920s. Grant argued that the white race was divided between Nordics,
Mediterraneans, and Alpines and that the latter two threatened to debase
Anglo-America, which he dened as Nordic. In this climate of racist
xenophobia, Congress passed in 1924 an immigration bill that severely
limited immigration from eastern and southern Europe and excluded
Japanese immigrants.
In order to counter the movement in Congress to enact restrictive

immigration legislation, Boas formulated a study to demonstrate that
the physical traits of immigrants were susceptible to environmental in-
uences. By doing this, Boas would undermine the notion that race and
anatomy were xed in nature and thereby disprove notions of racial
inferiority. Ingeniously, Boas employed the tool of the biological de-
terministsanthropometryto demonstrate the plasticity of human
form. In his famous head-form studies of immigrants and their children,
Boas provided evidence that head form changed from generation to
generation. Boass results showing dierent head shapes for Italian-born
immigrants and their American-born children placed the racial determi-
nists on the defensive. According to the traditional denition of race as a
group with similar physical traits, Boass ndings, published in 1911,
meant that Italians and Italian Americans could be members of two
dierent races. But the notion that a new race could emerge from the
ospring of another race rendered the denition of race untenable. The
fact that physical characteristics were partially determined by environ-
mental change undercut the notion that racial categories were xed in
23
nature. If physical traits changed from one generation to another, then
the physical dierences within a particular race would dier over time.
Furthermore, if racial categories were not xed in nature, then race as
a biological category was in question. As a result, Boas subverted sim-
plistic models of biological or racial determinism. Moreover, the cor-
relation of race with intelligence or any other mental characteristic was
controverted.
At Columbia Herskovits became interested in the study of African

cultures when he and Ruth Benedict took Boass seminar on the eco-
nomic life of nonliterate peoples.
Although Boas studied Native Amer-

ican cultures in his own research, he encouraged his students to consider
other parts of the world.
Boas had a longtime interest in Africa and

African Americans, publishing several articles on those subjects and seek-
ing foundation support, albeit unsuccessfully, to build an African mu-
seum that would provide a venue for increasing understanding about
Africa.
In Boass seminar Herskovits concentrated on agricultural so-

cieties in the Congo and West Africa, and Benedict focused on eastern
and southern African herding societies. Herskovitss interest in Africa
was piqued while Benedicts was not. He later recalled that he became
interested in the literature, and went on from there to work out the
problem that was later published as my doctoral thesis, the study of the
position of cattle in East African societies.
Based on research in the Columbia University library and W. E. B. Du

Boiss personal library, Herskovitss dissertation, The Cattle Complex
in East Africa, completed in 1923, was published in 1926 in four install-
ments in the American Anthropologist.
This was the rst application

of Clark Wisslers culture area methodologyused to analyze Native
American culturesto Africa. Elazar Barkan has observed that Wissler,
the curator of anthropology at the American Museum of Natural His-
tory and a member of the eugenicist Galton Society, was the rare racist
who helped advance scientic study. Wissler argued that cultures from all
parts of the world evolved in stages from a primitive state to civilization.
The culture area concept replaced the older framework in which anthro-
pologists, arguing from conjecture, traced the evolution of culture from
lower to higher forms, culminating in the highest form, Western civili-
zation. Despite his culture area methodology, Wissler remained attached
to a cultural hierarchy with Nordics (northern Europeans) at the top.
In The Cattle Complex in East Africa, Herskovits marshaled exten-

24
sive evidence from the literature to show that cattle were the central
organizing principle behind East African cultures from southern Africa
to the Sudan. Then he surveyed neighboring cultures to show how cattle
played a diminished role outside of East Africa. Although cattle were
raised in other parts of Africa, Herskovits maintained that in East Africa,
the regard for cattle reaches its highest pitch, here that they play the
greatest part in the everyday life of their owners, so that no study of
the region can be made without considering them.
Furthermore,
Herskovits argued that in connection with marriage and divorce, with
burial, inheritance, and food customs, and in other important ways,
cattle exert a deep inuence on East African culture.
For example,
cattle were the method of payment by the bridegroomthe bride pur-
chaseto the father of the bride before marriage. Cattle also played a
key role in marriage ceremonies. Penalties for crimes were often assessed
in cattle. Divorce settlements were generally paid in cattle; they were also
the usual medium of inheritance.
Herskovits argued that cattle played a diminished cultural role outside

of East Africa. For example, the San of southwestern Africa were unset-
tled hunters who did not breed cattle.
Although the Khoikhoi, in the

same region, did raise cattle, Herskovits placed them outside the Cattle
Complex area, in large part because none of the observers record any-
thing which parallels the careful systems to be noticed all through East
Africa. In addition, unlike most East Africans, they were nomadic and
loosely organized politically. The exclusion of the Khoikhoi from the
East Africa culture area, however, seems somewhat arbitrary. Herskovits
himself conceded that information about several Khoikhoi rituals was
incomplete, and in some ways Khoikhoi culture was similar to those cul-
tures he placed inside the Cattle Complex area.
Herskovits also ex-

cluded the cultures of the Congo, in this case because of the scarcity
of cattle in that region. He distinguished Arab societies from those with
the Cattle Complex because of their use of varied livestock, including
camels.
Herskovitss dissertation research laid the groundwork for his 1924

article A Preliminary Consideration of the Culture Areas of Africa and
his 1930 article The Culture Areas of Africa, which made important
conceptual contributions to African anthropology.
In the earlier arti-

cle, Herskovits divided Africa into nine culture areas based largely on
two broad economic divisions, agricultural and pastoral cultures, but
25
rejected the cultural hierarchy. In doing so, Herskovits took an impor-
tant step toward a more modern view of culture. In this work, he em-
ployed Boass concept of cultural relativism. Boas maintained that be-
cause ones values were culturally determined, one would tend to value
ones own culture above others. Therefore all evaluations of cultures by
outsiders were subjective. Thus Boas taught his students to study other
cultures without evaluating them, since any evaluation would be based
on an ethnocentric standard.
Although Herskovitss African cultural divisions are obsolete today,

they represent an important early attempt to devise a system for under-
standing African cultures. As Sally Falk Moore has pointed out, How-
ever imperfect, these attempts to make order out of ethnographic chaos,
to separate evidence-based classication from any conjectural evolution-
ary or diusionist scheme, represented a large step forward.
Further-
more, Herskovitss employment of the culture area concept represented
an important step away from a Eurocentric cultural hierarchy and a
move toward a value-free study of world cultures.
27
chapter two
The Attack on Pseudoscientic
Racism
I think the whole concept of race isnt worth the price of admission.
Melville J. Herskovits in the Chicago Daily News, December 1944
I
n the aftermath of World War I the Boasian attack on racial
hierarchy and the emphasis on an environmental and cultural view
of human development sparked a counterattack by biological deter-
minists. Moreover, the rising tide of nativist sentiment provided support
for promoters of racial hierarchy.
Biological determinists denounced

cultural anthropologists like the Boasians for neglecting the biological
aspect of anthropology and specically the problem of the dierential
racial makeup of the contemporary American population.
Many scien-
tists questioned anthropologys status as a science, as some anthropolo-
gists began to move away from biological studies of humans and reject
the value of a biological race concept. Therefore the biological determi-
nists sought to revive physical anthropology by supporting a renewed
emphasis on it and its analysis of racially determined human characteris-
tics.
This debate would provide the opportunity for Herskovits to con-

duct research into the physical anthropology of African Americans.
The conict between racialists and culturalists was played out in the
National Research Council (nrc), formed in 1916 to coordinate scien-
tic research in the interest of American military preparedness and na-
tional defense and principally backed by the Carnegie Corporation of
New York and the Rockefeller Foundation. Following World War I the
rst major institutional attempt to study race was made by the nrcs
Committee on Scientic Problems of Human Migrations (csphm),
formed in 1922 to nance anthropometric studies of race dierences that
The Attack on Pseudoscientic Racism
28
would promote immigration restriction. Robert M. Yerkes, the Yale psy-
chologist in charge of the armys World War I intelligence tests, and
Clark Wissler of the American Museum of Natural History, dominated
this committee. Both Yerkes and Wissler were members of the Galton
Society, an exclusively white Protestant organization formed by the eu-
genicist anthropologist Charles B. Davenport and the racist author Mad-
ison Grant.
The csphm generally supported studies that investigated

biological and not environmental inuences and thereby succeeded in
postponing the ascendance of the cultural school of anthropology.
During the early 1920s biological determinists, led by members of the

Galton Society, and environmental determinists, led by Boas, competed
to dictate the direction of anthropological studies. Until the mid-1920s
the biological determinists exercised the major inuence in anthropol-
ogy. After that, cultural anthropologists were in the ascendant but faced
signicant resistance from eugenicists and bio-anthropologists who re-
lied on simplistic Mendelianism and biometrics.
In this atmosphere dominated by nativists, eugenicists, and racists,

foundation supportmediated by the nrcfor cultural anthropology
dried up, while studies in archaeology and physical anthropology were
readily funded. Consequently, such prominent cultural anthropologists
as Ralph Linton, Fred Eggan, and Herskovits began their careers in
other eldsLinton and Eggan with studies in archaeology and Hers-
kovits in physical anthropology.
Boas responded to the eugenicists move against cultural anthropol-

ogy by using the nrc programs to buttress his own interpretive posi-
tion. He encouraged his students to participate in a coordinated attack
on the problem of the cultural factor in racial dierences and helped
three of themMargaret Mead, Otto Klineberg, and Herskovitsgain
funding from the nrcs Fellowship Program in the Biological Sciences,
established in 1923.
Meads study of adolescents in Samoa, Klinebergs

study of African American migrants tested intelligence, and Herskovitss
anthropometric study of African Americans all helped undermine pre-
viously held assumptions about race. Mead and Klineberg demonstrated
that adolescence and intelligence were strongly inuenced by environ-
ment and culture, not race, and Herskovits revealed the inadequacy of
the very concept of race when discussing Americans of African descent.
These studiesgenerated in part by the traditionalists attack on cultural

29
anthropologyhelped to strengthen the cultural interpretation of
mental dierences and undermine the racial interpretation.
In April 1923, while putting the nishing touches on his dissertation,

Herskovits submitted a fellowship application to the nrc on the prob-
lem of physical and psychological variability within a racially mixed pop-
ulation.
In applying for a grant to do an anthropometry study, Hersko-

vits deviated from his dissertations focus on East African cultural
anthropology. In fact, Herskovits never even took an anthropometry
class at Columbia.
So his decision to pursue physical anthropology and

study racial mixing was clearly inuenced by Boas and the powers at the
nrc, who wanted to support studies on the biological, not the cultural,
aspects of race. Thus the nrcs interest in biological studies of race for
the purpose of investigating race-related social issues and immigration
altered the direction of Herskovitss early career.
Herskovits planned a two-pronged attack in his research on African

Americans. He proposed a study of Harlem blacks (he later broadened
his research to include blacks in West Virginia and Washington dc) to
ascertain the degree to which African Americans were the product of a
mixed racial heritage. He would obtain genealogies and physical mea-
surements of African Americans to determine whether they were a race
according to the traditional denition of race, that is, a biological cate-
gory of people in which there was little physical variation between the
members of the group. Then Herskovits would compare the results of
his own measurements of black Americans with those done by others of
white Americans, black Americans, Europeans, Native Americans, and
West Africans. Herskovits expected to nd signicant physical variation
because he believed that black Americans represented a mixture of Euro-
pean and African heritage. Second, Herskovits planned to use anthro-
pometry, the tool of the scientic racist anthropologists, to test their
belief that race determined behavior. Like Boas, Herskovits believed that
environment, not race, was the key to behavior. He would compare the
relation between the ratio of White and Negro blood and mental ability
by employing psychological tests. He also proposed to compare homog-
eneousall-white, all-blackgroups with the heterogeneous or mixed
groups to see if there was a correlation between intelligence, race mix-
ture, and socioeconomic status.
By undertaking a study of race mixing, Herskovits tackled a subject

that had been clouded by racist assumptions for generations. During the
30
late eighteenth century a prominent English doctor, Charles White, who
believed that blacks and whites were two dierent species, claimed that
mulattoes were generally unable to reproduce.
A century later Herbert

Spencer insisted that race mixing between blacks and whites or Asians
and Europeans should be discouraged or even banned because the result
would be individuals with constitution[s] which will not work prop-
erly.
During the 1920s race mixing became an issue of public debate in

the context of the campaign to limit immigration to the United States. In
1921 Vice Presidentelect Calvin Coolidge, inuenced by the racist be-
liefs of Madison Grant, asserted, Biological laws tell us that certain
divergent people will not mix or blend. The Nordics propagate them-
selves successfully. With other races, the outcome shows deterioration
on both sides.
Herskovitss study was designed to provide an objective

view of African Americans ancestry and intelligence that was not marred
by racist preconceptions.
In order to acquire the necessary anthropological background for his
study, in 1924 Herskovits applied for additional funding from the nrc
and the International Education Board (ieb), founded the year before
by John D. Rockefeller Jr., for a ve-month research trip to western
Europe. Herskovits proposed to visit major anthropological collections
with signicant African holdings and to meet with prominent physical
anthropologists and ethnologists specializing in Africa.
Discussions between the ieb and the nrc reveal that Herskovitss
emphasis on the biological aspects of his study proved decisive in gaining
foundation approval for his project. The ieb and the nrc viewed Hers-
kovitss plans in the context of the debate over the proper direction of
anthropological research. The two organizations wanted to emphasize
the connection between anthropology and the biological sciences and to
downplay the connection with the social sciences and history. The nrc
did not want [t]o aliate psychology and anthropology with the his-
torical and sociological sciences, fearing that such a move would . . .
inhibit their most promising lines of development.
Thus the two

funding agencies demonstrated their probiology and anticultural bias in
studies of race. By emphasizing physical anthropology, as in the Hersko-
vits study, ocials at the two agencies believed they could strengthen the
view that race was an inherited category and weaken the opposing view
that de-emphasized race and focused on culture as determinative of hu-
man behavior and development. An nrc ocial who supported funding
31
the Herskovits trip told the ieb, I shall be glad to have this case re-
garded as a test case before your Board concerning relations to the eld
of psychology and anthropology.
Despite Herskovitss emphasis on physical anthropology, his applica-

tion for funding was not a sure thing. The eugenicist beliefs of several
members of the nrc and their antagonism toward Boas and his students
led to a heated debate on the Herskovits proposal. Funding was nally
arranged after Boas, backed by allied nrc members, overcame the op-
position of Clark Wissler, a prominent member of the nrc.
In April
1923 the nrc Board of National Research Fellowships in the Biologi-
cal Sciences formally approved a one-year, $150/month fellowship for
Herskovits to start after June 1923. He was required to nish his Ph.D.
rst, which he did that spring, and to work under Boas and Columbia
psychologist Edward L. Thorndike. In working under Boas and Thorn-
dike, Herskovits had to navigate between two scholars of diering per-
spectives, as Thorndike was a supporter of eugenics and a member of the
Galton Society.
While conducting his research, Herskovits also taught

anthropology courses at Columbia University as an unpaid lecturer from
1924 to 1927.
Herskovits was fortunate that continuing personal and substantive

divisions within the nrc did not prevent the council from renewing his
fellowship in 1924 and 1925. In May 1924 Harvard anthropologist Al-
fred M. Tozzer severely criticized the council, writing, Wissler is a per-
fect stinker. He has tied up everything in the Research Council, received
an appropriation of $7,000.00 for the study of race mixture, has his son
appointed a Special Assistant and left everyone else out in the cold.
Tozzer characterized these dealings as crooked business and called for
action against Wissler and Robert Yerkes, who was also mixed up in it.
Tozzer remarked that anthropologists Earnest A. Hooton and Alfred
Kroeber (Boass rst graduate student) were also upset but were not
doing anything about it.
Apparently, pressure on Wissler from Boas

and others succeeded in freeing up funds for nonmembers of the nrc
such as Herskovits, who was funded for a total of three years.
He
received steady increases in pay to $175/month for the second year and
$200/month for the third year; a $500/year increase was given in June
1925 after Herskovits was married.
In order to proceed on his research, Herskovits needed to make con-

tacts in the various black communities where he would be measuring,
32
and he also needed to hire assistants to help him with the measurements
and the statistical work. Boas introduced Herskovits to several people,
including Sadie Marie Peterson, who could help facilitate his research.
Peterson was a librarian at the 135th Street branch of the New York
Public Library (soon to become the repository for the Schomburg Col-
lection after the contributions of books and other material relating to the
black experience by Arthur Schomburg), one of the central meeting
places for Harlems black community. Peterson introduced Herskovits to
members of New Yorks black community, including Abram L. Harris,
who became a close friend as well as a research assistant on the project.
During 1923 and 1924 Herskovits made other important contacts in

the black community. In 1923 he went to meetings of the National
Association for the Advancement of Colored People (naacp) and the
Urban League and also met with Walter White of the naacp and Eslanda
Robeson, wife of Paul Robeson. Herskovits attended meetings at the
editorial oces of the Crisis, conferring with its editor, W. E. B. Du Bois.
In 1924 Herskovits widened his contacts as he met with Alain Locke, a
Howard University professor who was in New York preparing the spe-
cial issue of the Survey Graphic on the New Negro, and Charles S.
Johnson, editor of Opportunity, the Urban League journal. During these
two years Herskovits gave several talks in Harlem, at the oces of the
naacp, and at the 135th Street branch of the New York Public Library.
Among the titles of these talks were What Is a Race?, Is There a Racial
Psychology?, and Civilizations of Africa.
Both Boas and Herskovits promoted the training of black anthropolo-

gists who could assist on Herskovitss study while preparing for an aca-
demic career. They sought nancial support for several candidates.
In
1925 Herskovits wrote to a prospective donor, Boas is very anxious, as
am I, to have someone trained. The Negroes ought to have a compe-
tently trained man to ght their scientic battles for them.
Herskovits employed four black assistants on the study: Louis E. King

(based on Alain Lockes recommendation), Abram Harris, Zora Neale
Hurston, and Greene Maxwell. King, Harris, and Hurston were also
graduate students at Columbia and received funding from the univer-
sity. King and Hurston collaborated with Herskovits in measuring resi-
dents of Harlem; King measured subjects in West Virginia; and Maxwell
assisted Herskovits at Howard. Harris performed data tabulations.
Hurstons biographer observed that her dedication to this research con-

33
vinced her to take a pair of calipers and stand on a Harlem street cor-
ner measuring peoples skullsan act that many contemporaries felt
only Zora Hurston, with her relaxed insouciance, could have gotten
away with.
To broaden his studys evidentiary base, Herskovits proposed con-

ducting a large series of anthropometric measurements and genealogies
at a black college. In January 1925 the nrcs Committee on Scientic
Problems of Human Migrations approved this proposal.
Herskovitss
success in gaining nancial support for the study of black college stu-
dents was clearly due to the anthropometric nature of his research. In
addition, Alain Locke furnished an important letter of recommendation
indicating that Howard University would cooperate in Herskovitss re-
search.
Herskovits would now be able to do my long-looked-forward

to study of correlating standing in the [psychological entrance] tests
with various anthropometric Negroid traits.
With nrc approval, Herskovits wrote to President J. Stanley Durkee

(the last white president) of Howard University, asking for formal ap-
proval to do anthropometric measurements at Howard. After meeting
with a group of our scientists, Durkee decided that Herskovits should
teach a course at Howard to diuse any student opposition. The trou-
ble is that a year or two ago here in Washington, there was a dreadful
scandal because a man came in to the public schools and attempted that
sort of thing [measurements], explained Durkee.
In that case, the

Department of Justice accused a Dutch academic, Herman M. B. Moens,
who was conducting research on race mixing, of spying for the Germans.
Moreover, nude photographs (apparently of female students) relating to
the study were found in Moenss papers. An obscenity trial and a well-
publicized scandal followed.
Herskovits agreed to Durkees sugges-

tion. In order to avoid any conict with Howard anthropologist and
Africanist William Leo Hansberry, whose specialty was ethnology, Hers-
kovits oered to teach physical anthropology.
Herskovits realized that his project, which involved measuring dif-

ferent anatomical parts of African Americans, was an inherently contro-
versial one. Prior to the emergence of the Boasian paradigm, this type of
research had been used to rank the races and demonstrate the inferiority
of African Americans. Herskovits sought to allay suspicions and, at least
once, employed deception to do so. In June 1924 he told University of
Chicago student and future anthropologist Robert Redeld that, when
34
measuring adults, it was very important to have some denite tag of
some organisations which they respect and know. Therefore, he con-
tinued, [N]ext year I shall go to the homes of these children [who he
measured in their schools], with the standing of the school doctor, as
I have encouraged them to think I am, and measure the parents, thus
not only getting adult measurements but entire families, which is more
important.
Herskovits also secured the assistance of a number of top Howard

scholars, including biologist Ernest E. Just and Locke, in obtaining the
cooperation of the students and the administration for the study.
Hers-
kovits asked Locke to enlist student support for the project so that they
would agree to the measurements. Locke told Herskovits that there were
two reasons for student resistance. Some students believed that they
were being exploited for someone elses benet, while the memory of the
controversial Moens case had multiplied distrust of the type of project
that Herskovits proposed. Locke assured Herskovits, however, that due
to the backing of Durkee and the faculty, and the agreement to have
Herskovits teach a course, student resistance would be minimized. Hers-
kovits told Locke that he hoped to avoid controversy by eschewing the
measurement of female students.
Herskovits received permission from the nrc to teach a physical an-

thropology course at Howard. After receiving approval, Herskovits left
immediately for Washington dc and was able to report to the nrc that
by February 11, 1925, he already had sixty-nine students registered for
his class.
Just a month after his arrival at Howard University, a controversy

arose that almost proved fatal to Herskovitss research there. The Wash-
ington Evening Star reported Herskovitss talk at the March meeting
of the Washington Anthropological Association and distorted it so badly
that there was an uproar at Howard that threatened to terminate Hers-
kovitss research. The distortions included the articles claim that Hers-
kovits had stated that until recently, the Negro race was a very unstable
combination, but recently the blood has had a chance to settle. Read-
ers interpreted these nonsensical statements to mean that African Ameri-
cans were inclined toward physical, mental, and moral debilities. In addi-
tion, the Star reported erroneously that Herskovitss study demonstrated
that blacks were more physically powerful than whites and that Negroes
were a xed race.
The combination of the Star article and the memory

35
of the Moens case aroused the black communitys suspicions and threat-
ened the continuation of Herskovitss research. Only after Locke and
other Howard University professors assured the students that the Star
reports were untrue, and after the Star printed a retraction, did the
controversy dissipate.
Except for the Star controversy, Herskovits en-

countered no problems with his project and received excellent coopera-
tion from the Howard University students. Only occasionally did some-
one refuse to give a genealogy or to be measured.
The main purpose of Herskovitss anthropometric research was to

determine the degree to which African Americans were the products of
African, European, and American Indian ancestry. U.S. Census gures
indicated that from 1870 to 1920, between 12 and 21 percent of the
Negro population were mulattoes, with the 1920 Census putting the
gure at 15.9 percent.
A nding that most African Americans were of

mixed heritage would challenge preconceived notions of them as mem-
bers of an unchanging biological race. Moreover, any assumptions of
racial inferiority would be undermined because generalizations about a
group of people with diverse heritage would lack validity. Herskovitss
method included taking a large number of anatomical measurements of
his subjects and employing a quantitative system to measure skin color.
Herskovits then compared these resultswhich were supposed to in-
dicate biometrically to what degree African Americans were of mixed
African, European, and American Indian descentwith the genealogies
reported by the studys subjects.
This combination of statistical mea-

surements and genealogies would show the extent to which African
Americans, according to the samples, represented a mixed population
group. Since the reliability of physical measurements and genealogies
was questioned in some quarters, Herskovits proposed to employ both.
Due to the limited understanding of how physical traits were inherited,
relying on only physical measurements would be open to question as to
their signicance. Herskovits used the genealogies as a check against
the physical measurements. However, most whites believed that African
American genealogies were unreliable, based on the racist assumption of
black sexual promiscuity, which led many to argue that blacks could not
identify their biological fathers. Therefore Herskovits used the statistical
measurements of the physical traits to determine the reliability of the
genealogies and dispel criticism about their use.
Herskovits was convinced that in order to ensure the scientic nature

36
of his study, as many measurements as possible were required. In a 1927
article he rejected the cephalic index (ratio of head length to head width)
when used as the sole basis of racial classication but accepted the index
when used along with other calculations.
So Herskovits and his assis-

tants took thirty dierent measurements, which were chosen based on
the expectation that they would reveal the results of race mixing. The
measurements included standing height, sitting height, width of shoul-
ders, width of hips, head length, head width, cephalic index, height of
head, minimum forehead width, distance between inner corners of eyes,
distance between outer corners of eyes, distance between the midpoints
of the pupils of the eyes, nose height, nose width, nose depth, distance
from crease to tip of nose (right side), upper facial height, total facial
height, distance between widest part of cheek bones, mouth width, lip
thickness (measured at center and right side), ear length, ear width, right
hand width, middle nger length (right hand), and four quantitative
measures of skin color.
The signicance of the measurements was based

on the assumption that the mean average of these measurements on
peoples of dierent raceswhites, blacks, American Indianswould be
substantially dierent.
Based on the advice of T. Wingate Todd, a physical anthropologist at

the Anatomical Laboratory in the School of Medicine at Western Re-
serve University in Cleveland, Herskovits used the Milton-Bradley spin-
ning color top to measure skin color.
This device, which the manufac-

turer intended for use as a toy for children to learn about the principle
of color mixture, was rst employed to measure skin color by the biolo-
gist Charles B. Davenport. Herskovits used the color top because it was
the only means devised to date for studying pigmentation in quantita-
tive fashion. For this reason, in spite of the essential articiality of the
ndings derived from its use, (since these represent no actual anatomical
or physiological facts), it has been employed in this study. The top came
with four disks: black, white, red, and yellow, and by combining them
in the proper conguration, skin color could be very closely approxi-
mated, if not exactly matched. A sheet of paper with a hole in it was
placed over the subjects outer upper arm, and the rest of the arm was
covered. As the top was spun, the observer would glance at the top to
match skin to top color, adjust the disks to match, and then record a
number for each disk color representing the disk conguration. Hersko-
vits noted that consistency between observers might be a problem, as it
37
would be dicult to guarantee consistent top speed and color evalua-
tions. Nonetheless, he believed that through training observers and ana-
lyzing observer dierences, these problems could be minimized.
Todd
advised Herskovits that only with two independent observers would the
color test on mulattoes be valid.
Apparently, Herskovits rejected this

advice, perhaps due to budgetary constraints, as he employed one ob-
server at a time. Later, psychologist Joseph Peterson criticized Hersko-
vitss technique because the spinning velocity of the color top varied.
Peterson recommended the use of a small electric motor to hold spin-
ning speed constant.
Herskovits was not unaware of the inherent problems in categorizing

humanity into biological races. Most important, race resisted denition.
Herskovits knew of no denition of race that is both clear-cut and
adequate. Nevertheless, his research sought to test the generally ac-
cepted view that a pure race was one in which individuals exhibited very
small variability in their physical characteristics. According to this view,
race mixing would yield a group that manifested much larger variability
of physical characteristics.
Herskovits was not dissuaded by the emerging view among many

physical anthropologists that anthropometric measurements were too
inconsistent to use to determine race.
He assumed that by measur-

ing more traits and not relying on one trait, such as cephalic index, he
was being more scientic than other physical anthropologists. But even
Herskovitss closest associate in the eld, Wingate Todd, who played a
key role in advising Herskovits on the methods of carrying forward his
study, questioned the use of some of these measurements.
Todd told
Herskovits, Your plan for the n.r.c. interests me very much and there is
no doubt that it should satisfy that body but it is not sturdy enough
thinking to satisfy you. Thick lips and broad noses are no criterion of
negro blood but only of one type of negro. There is no direct selection
of middle nger length, nasal height, fore-head hair and interpupillary
distance in negroes. Purely by accident there may be a dierence in
these things between a given sample of negroes and a given sample of
whites. . . . I do not believe that you should expect these proposals
to help a scrap towards a solution of the so-called negro hybrid prob-
lem.
Despite his respect for Todds scholarship, Herskovits rejected his

friends advice. Indeed, laypersons also occasionally questioned Hersko-
38
vitss methods. The wife of one of Herskovitss Harlem subjects called
the measurements foolishness.
Another problem with some of the measurements was that they could
be painful. In February 1926 Herskovits told Todd, The instruments
which we need worst are the head-spanner and the sliding calipers. I was
able to borrow a spreading calipers for [Louis] King at the Museum [of
Natural History], but he is having to use a pair of French sliding ones,
and the sharp points on them make it dicult for him to work with the
living.
Herskovitss report on his researchpublished in 1928 as The Ameri-

can Negro: A Study in Racial Crossingcontradicted received opinion
and engendered controversy.
Herskovits discovered that both his ana-

tomical measurements and his genealogies indicated that most African
Americans had a mixed racial background. His data disclosed a much
greater degree of European and American Indian heritage than that
indicated by previous measures and contradicted U.S. Census gures
that had reported that less than a fth of African Americans were mulat-
toes.
Herskovitss conclusion was supported by the discovery of large

variations in skin color among his subjects. For example, he found a large
color variation between siblings among the students he measured at
Public School 89 in Harlem. Herskovits argued that this must be the
result of parents and grandparents with signicant skin color variations,
indicating a mixed racial heritage.
Herskovits initially concluded that only 20 percent of American Ne-

groes were pure Negro based on his Howard University research, but
he later revised this gure upward to about 30 percent. He reasoned that
there is a social selection on the basis of color (I do not believe it
extends to the other Negroid traits) which makes for somewhat lighter
men on the average who take higher education.
After tabulating all his

genealogies, Herskovits found that 22 percent of his subjects claimed
pure Negro ancestry.
Based on his ndings among Howard Univer-

sity students that less than 1 percent had a white parent and not many
more had a white grandparent, Herskovits concluded that the race mix-
ing had occurred several generations earlier.
The lack of recent race

mixing between whites and blacks was due to the fact that the Negro
community, as well as the White, frowns upon interracial matings.
Although he had expected to nd great variations in his measurements

of physical traits among the mixed-race Negroes, Herskovits found just
the opposite. Indeed, his discovery of low physical variability (besides
39
skin color) provided him with an even more powerful critique of the
race concept. Most traditional anthropologists and biologists believed
that the physical traits of the individuals within a racial group varied
much less than those of individuals born to parents of dierent races.
This was based on the belief that racial characteristics had a genetic
basis and that a particular physical trait corresponded directly with a
particular gene. According to this view, great variation in the racial heri-
tage, and therefore the genes, of parents would lead to great variation in
the physical traits of the children. But Herskovits found that African
Americans, who were a predominantly mixed racial group, demon-
strated low physical trait variability. He explained this apparent anomaly
by arguing that, contrary to the traditionalists view, physical traits did
not correspond directly to particular genes. Instead, Herskovits em-
braced the emerging view of geneticists, who were beginning to demon-
strate that there was a more complex relationship between genotype and
phenotype.
This conclusion undercut one of the principal supports for

the race concept. If genotype did not correspond directly with pheno-
type, then the biological signicance of race as dened by visible physical
traits was diminished. Whats more, Herskovits argued that low physical
variability among African Americans did not indicate the formation of a
new race. Rather, he questioned the usefulness of the race concept in
general. If race was dened as a group with similar physical traits and if a
group that was proven to be of mixed racial origin demonstrated physi-
cal homogeneity, then racial categories (dened in biological terms)
were rendered meaningless.
Herskovits, however, was not ready to reject the signicance of physi-

cal traits as a basis for categorizing humanity. Explaining the physical
homogeneity of African Americans as a result of inbreeding among
mulattos, Herskovits pointed to the development of a new type dif-
ferent from Negro and from White, in the process of becoming.
Based
on the combination of racial mixing and low variability, Herskovits de-
cided to call American Negroes a homogeneous population group.
He proposed that we shall have to reserve the term Negro for such
persons as are of full Negro ancestry and use some such term as not-
White to describe the material with which we are working. I always use
Colored, which I think ts nicely.
By endorsing the practice of cate-

gorizing African Americans based on physical characteristics, Herskovits
inadvertently gave support to those who would interpret his ndings as
evidence of the formation of a new race.
40
In the context of racist views of mulatto infertility or biological degen-
eracy, however, Herskovitss characterization of African Americans as a
distinct or homogeneous population group or type represented an anti-
racist position. Census data that indicated that mulattoes represented a
declining proportion of African Americans could be used as evidence of
the racist position. Herskovitss ndings that most black Americans had
a mixed racial heritage and constituted a stable physical typeone with
low physical variabilityrefuted the racist position.
Although Herskovitss subjects were from only a few select regions
New York, Washington dc, and West Virginiahe believed that his
conclusions would hold for the general African American population.
This belief was based in part on the fact that the New York children
whom he measured came from all over the American South and the West
Indies.
In addition, in January 1927 Herskovits discovered that an

anthropometric study of black women at Tuskegee Institute in Alabama
conrmed his results.
Nonetheless, Boas advised Herskovits that more

evidence was needed in order to conclude that his results were generally
true of African Americans.
Boas told Herskovits in early 1928 that

although he was inclined to accept Herskovitss conclusions, Herskovits
needed to continue the research in Alabama and Louisiana to conrm his
ndings.
Boas also cautioned his former student about overstating his

conclusion: I do not think you have a right to claim more than that the
American Negro has not as high a variability as might be suspected on
account of the very great dierences of the amount of white and negro
blood in the various groupings.
Herskovits accepted his mentors ad-

vice and wrote a conservative conclusion to The Anthropometry of the
Negro, the technical and statistical statement of his study directed to an
academic audience. In this work, he characterized the new physical type
of American Negroes as a relatively homogeneous one.
Meanwhile, Herskovits sought to address Boass admonitions and

criticisms by others that he did not have enough evidence to support his
conclusion that African Americans were forming a new physical type. He
moved to provide more evidence from the Deep South. In December
1929 Herskovits received funding from the nrc to send a black student,
Vivian Cameron, to Mississippi to do anthropometrical measurements
and record genealogies.
After analyzing Camerons measurements of

171 families, including 639 males and females, Herskovits reported that
it appears that this Black Belt population is no more negroid than that
measured by me in the North during my earlier research.
He con-
41
cluded that there were no signicant regional dierences between north-
ern and southern blacks. There were, however, some traits that did dif-
fer signicantly: skin color (attributed to Mississippians working in
the sun), head width and cephalic index, upper facial height, and, for
women only, nose width. These last three were biologically unexplain-
able, so Herskovits assumed that there was probably an environmental
explanation. This study also conrmed Herskovitss earlier conclusion
that African Americans were becoming a homogeneous population. By
disregarding the statistics that did not accord with his desired conclu-
sion, however, Herskovits did what many of the racist physical anthro-
pologists had previously done, reject or rationalize evidence that con-
tradicted their theories.
In addition, Herskovitss argument that his

conclusions could be generalized to describe all American blacks was
undercut because he could not ensure that the samples of white Ameri-
cans and Africans (measured by others) used for comparison purposes
were representative.
During the late 1940s August Meier, a young history professor at

Tougaloo College in Mississippi, conducted a genealogical study of his
black students that conrmed the results of Herskovitss study. In fact,
Meiers genealogies of Tougaloo students indicated an even lower per-
centage of those with unmixed African descent than had Herskovitss
earlier study. The one major dierence was that the Tougaloo students
indicated a much larger degree of American Indian heritage, 72 percent
compared to 27 percent in the Herskovits study. This dierence was
attributed to the dierent regions studied by Herskovits and Meier.
Meier expanded his research into other area schools and, with Hersko-
vitss help, published A Study of the Racial Ancestry of the Mississippi
College Negro in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology. Meier
surveyed 1,479 students from Tougaloo College, Campbell College, Jack-
son State Teachers College, Southern Christian Institute, and Alcorn
A&M College in Mississippi; Dillard University in New Orleans; and
LeMoyne College in Memphis, Tennessee. Meiers results once again
conrmed Herskovitss conclusion that only a small minority of African
Americans were of unmixed African ancestry. The fact that Meiers 1947
48 study indicated that more blacks had mixed ancestry than Herskovits
found in 1928 armed Herskovitss prediction of twenty years earlier
that as mixed Negroes married unmixed Negroes, there would be fewer
Negroes without mixed ancestry.

42
Herskovits oered a cultural explanation for the development of Afri-
can Americans into a predominantly mixed-race group with a low degree
of physical variability.
He postulated that darker-skinned men choos-

ing lighter-skinned women as wives caused the homogeneity of the
mixed group. Herskovits explained that this dynamic was due to the
prestige of marrying light-colored women, based on Negroes accep-
tance of the values of the mainstream American population with respect
to skin color. Herskovits rst noticed this convention when he observed
that the skin color of the fathers of the Howard students, based on the
genealogies, was generally darker than that of the mothers.
Moreover,
Herskovits believed that as darker-skinned men and lighter-skinned
women married, an even more homogeneous group would form.
The reaction to The American Negro revealed the dierent perspectives

of various individuals and groups involved in the debate on race. Tradi-
tionalists, who viewed race as a category xed in nature, either attacked
Herskovitss characterization of American Negroes as a homogeneous
population group or misinterpreted it to t their own preconceptions.
They asserted that Herskovitss research indicated that African Ameri-
cans were a distinct race despite Herskovitss specic statement in his
book that African Americans represented a homogeneous population
type rather than a race. Charles B. Davenport, cofounder of the eugeni-
cist Galton Society, rejected Herskovitss distinction between a homoge-
neous population group and a race. Based on his denition of race as a
homogeneous group that is more or less distinctly cut o from other
groups, Davenport asserted that there was no dierence between a race
and a homogeneous group. Therefore American Negroes were a new
race.
Anatomist Robert Bennett Bean of Johns Hopkins University

similarly misinterpreted Herskovitss conclusion, insisting that Hers-
kovits had declared the formation of a new racial entity, the Ameri-
can negro.
Herskovitss attempt to undermine stereotypes about black sexual

promiscuity, though well intentioned, proved unconvincing to his tradi-
tionalist critics. In fact, his ndings revealed that Negro genealogies
were closely correlated with the measurements and thus refuted the pop-
ular and racist notion that Negro genealogies were invalid.
Nonethe-
less, traditionalist scholars rejected Herskovitss validation of the geneal-
ogies. Robert Bennett Bean attacked Herskovitss use of genealogical
information. Bean based his attack on his personal experiences as a Vir-
43
ginian, where he claimed that due to widespread black promiscuity,
Negroes rarely knew who their father was.
Psychologist Joseph Peter-

son also rejected the accuracy of the genealogies based on his view that
the subjects had no direct knowledge of their ancestry. He asserted that
the subjects fabricated a genealogy that t their own physical traits.
Unlike the traditionalists, forward-looking scholars wrote decidedly

positive reviews of Herskovitss work. Wingate Todd, for instance,
lauded the clear demonstration of the increasing homogeneity of Ne-
groes.
Another reviewer called The American Negro a brilliant piece

of work.
Similarly, Du Bois showered the book and its author with

praise.
Du Bois pronounced Herskovits a real scientist and called the

book epoch-making. Herskovits, he continued, proves that the Amer-
ican Negro is a new denite group. All of that nonsense fostered by the
United States Census as to mulattos is swept away.
For Du Bois,
Herskovitss conclusion that a majority of African Americans were of
mixed heritage discredited the racist notion that mulattoes were disap-
pearing due to their supposed biological degeneracy or infertility. In
addition, Du Boiss interest in fostering racial and cultural pride pre-
disposed him to favor Herskovitss nding that American blacks were a
denite group. Nonetheless, Herskovits, an outspoken assimilationist
at the time, sought to downplay the cultural dierences between blacks
and whites.
Although the main results of his study weakened the notion of race as
a xed biological category, Herskovitss use of a biometric methodology
inadvertently reinforced a biologically based race concept. Carter Wood-
sons brief review of The American Negro demonstrated his awareness of
the regressive impact of Herskovitss approach. Unlike the conservative
critics who accepted Herskovitss methodology but rejected his conclu-
sions, Woodson attacked Herskovits for his use of anthropometry. He
called The American Negro a brief and incomplete treatment by an
inexperienced scholar. Woodson argued that Herskovits raised the same
questions that psychologists and anthropologists had been raising for
years as they continued to study the Negro physiologically. Woodson
continued, The whole eort seems to have been to prove that the Ne-
gro is inferior to the whites, but so far the only thing that we have is the
evidence of dierences in progress due to environment and opportunity.
Science supports the claim that races are very much alike and that if
similarly circumstanced they will give practically the same account of
44
their stewardship.
In Woodsons mind, Herskovitss physiological ap-

proach supported the racist assumptions of traditional anthropologists.
Forward-thinking social scientists, according to Woodson, should be
adopting an environmental approach to cultural dierences.
Woodson had a point. Herskovitss secondary results from his physical
anthropology work revealed that his approach did highlight physiologi-
cal dierences between blacks and whites. In April 1924, for instance,
Herskovits read a paper at the annual meeting of Woodsons Association
for the Study of Negro Life and History based on his measurements of
students at Public School 89 in Harlem. Herskovits concluded that
greatest nose width and greatest lip thickness were strongly correlated
with greatest standing height, head length, facial width, nger length,
hand width, and sitting height. The signicance of this correlation was
that the various measurements could then be correlated with race. Nev-
ertheless, by stressing physical traits and ignoring environmental inu-
ence, Herskovits unwittingly strengthened the biologically based race
concept.
Similarly, Herskovitss 1924 article on the physical growth of black

youth may have provided ammunition for those still supporting the
sanctity of the biological race concept. After comparing his measure-
ments of the students at Public School 89, records of children at the Col-
ored Orphan Asylum in Riverdale, New York, and other studies of black
and white youth, Herskovits concluded, Colored boys grow faster in
height and weight to the 16th year than White boys. The adolescent
growth spurt occurred one year earlier for the Colored boys, despite
their lower economic status.
He also reported that white children

grew more slowly than black children did, with the corresponding dier-
ence less for those African Americans with more European heritage.
Although Herskovitss stated goal was to determine to what degree en-
vironment and racial mixture aected the physical development of the
children, he did not stress the environmental inuence.
By empha-
sizing physiological dierences between whites and blacks, Herskovits
again reinforced a biological approach. In addition, his publication of
articles on head width, head length, and interpupillary distance lent sup-
port for a continued biological emphasis in race study. By continued use
of these physical traits for classication purposes, Herskovits uninten-
tionally reinforced the race concept.
Nonetheless, he viewed Woodsons attack as personal. Herskovits told

45
Alain Locke, Thanks for sending me Woodsons review of my book. He
is in his usual formI thought he would take it harder than a mere
patting on the head. I must confess that I rather resent the assertion that
I have been prejudiced in my work. I did not think that any one would
say that and I am telling him so in no uncertain terms by this mail.
Herskovits did write Woodson, questioning whether Woodson had

even read the book and defending himself against the charges of preju-
dice, noting that he did not discuss mental capacity in the book. Associat-
ing himself with Boas, whom he assumed had Woodsons respect, he
challenged Woodson, May I ask if you feel that he [Boas] also is trying
to prove inferiority of the Negro?
Unlike Woodson, prominent black sociologists E. Franklin Frazier

and Charles S. Johnson focused their criticism on the social selec-
tion explanation for the development of a homogeneous population
group among American Negroes. Frazier and Johnson rejected Hers-
kovitss argument that dark-skinned black men married light-skinned
black women for increased social prestige.
In a generally unfavorable
review, Frazier argued that Herskovitss sample was not representative of
the general black population because the Harlem and Howard popu-
lations had an unusually large mulatto group. Furthermore, Frazier re-
garded Herskovitss claim that darker-complexioned men married lighter
women as simplistic, failing to take into account other sociological dis-
tinctions such as family tradition and wealth.
Herskovitss detection of the formation of a new physical type among

American Negroes coincided with a similar recognition among blacks
themselves.
A 1941 survey conducted by Charles S. Johnson indicated

that blacks idealized the brown color. Joel Williamson has argued that
this glorication of brownness . . . achieved a popular consummation in
1936 when boxer Joe Louis became the heavyweight champion of the
world and was proudly dubbed the Brown Bomber.
Unfortunately, several academics and popular writers began to dis-

seminate a distorted version of Herskovitss ndings to a wide audience
during the 1930s.
These writers misinterpreted Herskovitss conclu-

sions and strengthened the notion that American Negroes formed a
distinct racial group. In 1931 Edwin Embree, president of the Rosen-
wald Foundation, published Brown America: The Story of a New Race.
Based in large part on the results of Herskovitss study, Embree an-
nounced the formation of a new brown-skinned race that represented
46
the mixing of African, European, and American Indian ancestors.
While he applauded Brown America for its liberal attitude toward Ne-
groes, Herskovits criticized Embrees tendency to speak of the Ameri-
can Negro as a brown race. Moreover, Herskovits felt rather respon-
sible for it since Mr. Embrees use of the term is obviously based on my
own work. Herskovits regretted that his study, which should have un-
dermined the ecacy of the race concept, might extend its use. Hersko-
vits insisted, In my own book I very carefully stated that the Negro was
forming a type and not a race.
Similarly, in his forthcoming book on racial and ethnic groups, T. J.

Woofter Jr. of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill cited
Herskovits for the idea that American Negroes were biologically and
culturally . . . developing a new brown race. After reading a draft of
Woofters work in 1933, Herskovits told him that although Embree used
the phrase brown race, he wanted to dissuade people from calling
American Negroes a new race. Herskovits reasserted his conclusion that
African Americans formed a homogeneous population group, not a
race.
In addition to inuencing scholarly and public discourse on race mix-

ing, Herskovits published a series of articles during the 1920s that helped
undermine the use of personality and intelligence tests to degrade Afri-
can Americans. In the initial prospectus for his study of race crossing,
Herskovits planned to test the notion that race was correlated with intel-
ligence and temperament. Racist anthropologists argued that tempera-
ment and intelligence varied across racial lines and contributed to be-
havioral dierences.
Although Herskovits did do some research in

these areas, they were not addressed in the two books published from his
study. Instead, Herskovits published his ndings that discredited the
relationship between race, temperament, and intelligence in separate
articles.
Herskovits had considered giving the Downey Will-Temperament Test

(the most popular personality test of the 1920s) to racially mixed
groups and black groups to test the correlation between certain character
traitsthat were considered strong correlates to temperamentand
race.
June Downey, the creator of the test, claimed that her test mea-
sured ones temperament, which she dened as ones innate relatively
permanent disposition. The test required participants to perform twelve
handwriting tasks.
Then the results were evaluated by analyzing the

47
participants handwriting for such characteristics as speed of movement,
speed of decision, and noncompliance. Before deciding on whether to
use the test, Herskovits executed a trial run by giving the test to three
groups of his own acquaintances. Each individual was judged on certain
character traits. Herskovits discovered that trait evaluations were very
subjective and depended on the evaluators interpretation of the tests
denitions of the traits being measured. As a result, the correlation be-
tween individual traits was very low. Based on this trial run, Herskovits
concluded that great caution should be exercised in the use of this
test and decided against using it. In 1924 Herskovits published an ar-
ticle in which he rejected the Downey Will-Temperament Test as unreli-
able. In rejecting this particular test, Herskovits implied that tempera-
ment was not a statistically measurable quality, making it futile to try to
correlate race and temperament.
Herskovitss article contributed to

the general abandonment of the Downey Will-Temperament Test by
other researchers.
Herskovits also published articles that challenged the prevailing view

that race was closely correlated with intelligence. This view had been
given a large boost by the armys IQ tests administered to over 1.5 mil-
lion recruits during World War I. Psychologist Carl Brighams 1923
study of the armys tests, A Study of American Intelligence, concluded
that the Nordic (northern Europeans) race was intellectually superior to
the Alpine and Mediterranean (southern Europeans) races. Brigham
also maintained that American Negroes were intellectually inferior to
whites.
A distinct minority, led by Boas and his students, challenged the con-
clusions reached by the racist interpreters of the army tests. In 1923
Alfred Kroeber observed that the test results contradicted the racial in-
feriority of black Americans, as northern blacks had scored higher than
southern whites.
In 1926, based on her masters thesis that focused on

intelligence tests and Italian American children, Margaret Mead con-
cluded that intelligence tests were suspect because they ignored dier-
ences in language, education, socioeconomic status, and culture between
participants of dierent races or nationalities.
During the early 1930s

psychologist Otto Klineberg found that diering test results among
northern blacks, southern blacks, northern whites, and southern whites
were due to environmental factors and not to selective migration of more
48
intelligent blacks to the North. The North proved to be a more favor-
able environment to educational achievement.
Herskovits joined his fellow Boasians in attacking the intelligence

tests. In 1924, in an article for the American Mercury, Herskovits attacked
Brighams Study of American Intelligence for using head form as the basis
for categorizing individuals as Nordic, as Mediterranean, or as members
of other races. Herskovits rejected the validity of Brighams use of head
form based on Boass studies that demonstrated the environmental im-
pact on head form. Moreover, Herskovits explained that the large varia-
tions in physical characteristics within a race led to great diculty in
racial categorization.
The following year Herskovits rejected the argu-

ment that the intelligence tests demonstrated racial dierences. Citing
Meads research, Herskovits asserted that the key variables in test re-
sults were due to environmental inuences such as language acquisition,
length of time in the United States, and social status. He also pointed out
that the tests were culturally biased when they used such images as a
tennis court, which would be unknown to many immigrants. Based on
his own research, Herskovits also rejected a racial analysis when compar-
ing whites and Negroes, as American Negroes represented a mixed-
racial group. He explained, The very term Negro is social rather than
racial . . . [as in the United States it] means . . . not-all-white.
In his physical anthropology study, Herskovits compared genealogies

and biometric measurements on Howard University students with their
scores on the Thorndike College Entrance Examination. He reviewed
previous studies that almost universally concluded that blacks scored
lower than whites on intelligence tests. Herskovits then reviewed the
scores of African Americans of various mixtures of European and African
descent and correlated the test scores of more than a hundred Howard
students with physical traits such as lip thickness, skin color, and nose
width. He found an extremely low correlation between intelligence and
degree of white ancestry, based on the physical measurements. For each
trait, the correlation was less than .2, and some were close to zero.
Herskovits concluded that the relationship between test scores and

physical traits denoting greater or less amounts of Negro blood is so
tenuous as to be of no value in drawing conclusions as to the compara-
tive native ability or relative intelligence of the Negro when compared to
the White.
In reporting no signicant correlation between race and

test scores, this article contributed to the argument against a hierarchy of
49
intelligence based on race. Moreover, this 1926 article preceded the pub-
lication of Klinebergs conclusions.
In 1927 Herskovits published a pamphlet on the same subject entitled

The Negro and the Intelligence Tests. He argued that intelligence tests and
psychological tests were culturally biased because the test-makers were
white, and thus nonwhite test-takers were at a disadvantage. Herskovits
maintained that these tests should be closely scrutinized before their
results could be accepted as proof of the innate superiority of one group
over another. He asserted that attempts to compare the intelligence of
white Americans and black Americans were awed by misguided as-
sumptions. Contrary to the general belief, African Americans could not
be characterized as a biological entity, since they represented a mixture of
European and African heritage. In addition, Herskovits argued that the
results of intelligence tests did not control for environmental variables
such as barriers of inferior opportunity, the tradition of social degrada-
tion, and the historical background of slavery.
This argument indi-

cated that Herskovits was shifting the discourse from a focus on race and
biological factors to an emphasis on culture and environmental factors.
Herskovitss exclusion of his research on psychological tests from his
monograph The American Negro, however, led some critics to claim that
his book did nothing to countermand their claims for white superiority.
For instance, psychologist Joseph Peterson claimed that Herskovitss
ndings did not disprove the hypothesis that with more European heri-
tage there was a higher level of intelligence and also did not contradict
psychological ndings of race dierences.
In December 1928 Hersko-

vits defended his conclusion that there was no correlation between test
scores and the race mixture of Howard University students from an
attack by University of Minnesota psychologists. Herskovits maintained
that the psychologists were not correct in assuming that greater selec-
tion has operated to bring a larger percentage of persons with large
amounts of Negro blood to Howard than would be found in the general
community. Of course, there is no doubt but that there are handicaps for
the darker men wherever they go, as compared to those which the lighter
must face. This is true with situations involving White and Negro, and
Negro and Negro. But it was found at Howard that the result is that the
darker students do the best work!
In the years following the publication of The American Negro, Hersko-

vits sought to ensure that his work was properly understood as an attack
50
on a biologically based race concept. He used his newfound status as an
authority on race and physical anthropology to publicize his conclusions
and to reproach those who professed to have found scientic proof of
racial inferiority or superiority.
In 1929 Herskovits advised the Rosen-

wald Foundation of the inadequacies of psychologist Joseph Petersons
anthropometry study, which concluded evidence points to a dierence
in native intellectual ability favoring the whites. Herskovits rejected
Petersons use of psychological tests as a valid measure of intelligence and
attacked Petersons methodology, maintaining that the practice of multi-
plying the head by its width was entirely meaningless. He continued,
to correlate psychological tests with head sizes, height and width,
means nothing . . . from the point of view of any light which may be
turned on race dierences. At the same time, Herskovits argued that
Petersons use of the von Luschan scale to measure skin color was in-
defensible.
Anthropologist Paul Bohannon later described the von

Luschan method as follows: The anthropologist got out his pack of
cards, and then caught a subject. He made him take o his shirt (if he
had one on) and lift his arm, because he wanted a patch of skin where the
sun had never shone. He ran the cards along the patch of skin until he
found a matchwhen the color of the skin through the quarter-sized
hole was the same as that on the printed card surrounding it. That gave
him a number that he wrote down. When he got all the subjects mea-
sured, he added up the numbers, divided by the number of subjects, and
got what can only be called a mean shade. The main problem was that
there was rarely any agreement on which color matched the card, and
dierent judges would come to dierent conclusions.
In 1930 Herskovitss entry for Race Mixture in the Encyclopaedia of

the Social Sciences expressed the Boasian view of race, maintaining that
there were no biologically pure races due to the historical process of race
mixing over many thousands of years. This result was demonstrated by
the large variations in physical traits within particular races.
After a
review of the major studies of race crossing, Herskovits concluded, as his
own study did, that simple Mendelian heredity (the direct correspon-
dence between a gene and a physical trait) did not hold because the
hybrid groups were more homogeneous than the parent groups, just the
opposite of what would be expected. Thus if the hybrid groups were
more homogeneous than the parent groups, homogeneity could not be,
as previously thought, an index of racial purity. Herskovits inferred
51
that this might be the same process by means of which the present day
pure races may have attained their homogeneity after an original cross
or series of crosses.
Herskovits also rejected the arguments for in-

ferior reproductive vigor of hybrids or inferior intellectual evaluations of
hybrids compared to pure races. Instead, he maintained that it is
more satisfactory to regard the social behavior of hybrid populations as
reections of their cultural milieu than to refer the matter to biological
causes.
Herskovits also used his status as an authority on race to publicize the

notion that race was a sociological concept, not a biological concept. In
1940 Herskovits was asked to arbitrate a case of questionable race iden-
tity of a child with a white mother and an unknown father for the Coun-
cil of Jewish Women of Los Angeles. The agency wanted the child to be
raised within its race and was concerned that she might bear black chil-
dren if she had some African heritage.
Herskovits explained that the

American concept Negro . . . is a sociological rather than a biological
one, since we term anyone a Negro who has any proportion of African
ancestry. Consequently, he advised the agency that there would be little
danger of its later having a black baby if she married a white man. . . .
There is no indication that Negroidness, so to speak, is inherited as a unit
character. . . . Certainly, there are no tests that will give you conclusive
evidence of the racial aliations of the child. Herskovits recommended
that the child should be raised where she was wanted, in this case with
the mother and the mothers parents.
Similarly, in February 1946, in response to a laypersons inquiry, Hers-

kovits said, Race itself, I may say, is a scientic ction whose usefulness is
merely to permit the classication of human types in furthering scientic
analysis. All human beings belong to the same species, and what gives an
individual, whatever his race, his innate endowment, is the quality of his
own ancestry without any reference to its racial aliation.
As a mature scholar, Herskovits continued to attack the use of intel-

ligence tests to determine innate intelligence. In March 1946 Herskovits
advised Theodor Monod, Institut Francais dAfrique Noire, Dakar, Sen-
egal, French West Africa, against the use of the so-called intelligence
tests, as American psychologists accepted the fact that these tests mea-
sured experience more than innate intelligence and thus cannot be em-
ployed across cultural lines. . . . [T]he application of these tests to the
52
Negroes of the United States has resulted only in the perpetuation of
prejudice and the rationalization of injustice.
During the Second World War Herskovits attacked racism and preju-
dice at public events. As a participant in a panel at the 1945 Chicago Con-
ference on Home Front Unity, held under the auspices of the Mayors
Committee on Race Relations, Herskovits read a paper entitled The
Myths of Prejudice. In it, Herskovits attacked Madison Grant, author of
The Passing of the Great Race, and Lothrop Stoddard, author of The Revolt
Against Civilization: The Menace of the Underman, as American purveyors
of pseudo-scientic racism. Dening racism as [t]he distortion of
scientic fact concerning race dierences for political ends, Herskovits
bemoaned the damage done by racists [who] go on shouting that races
are linguistic, cultural, national groupings gifted with innate endow-
ments that are variously described so as to t the purpose in hand. He
also attacked the World War I psychological tests as another sanction
for American racism. . . . [T]hey have been used again and again to prove
Nordic superiority. Herskovits then explained that these tests were
often used by the Nazis to support their racist theories. He concluded by
insisting that racist thought must be fought. He asserted that Amer-
icas ideals would prevail if we look to the truth, balance the things men
have in common against those that dierentiate them in the scale of
science, and act to implement the human equalities that are to be read in
that scale.
In 1956 Herskovits challenged a published statement by C. J. Mc-

Gurk, a Villanova psychologist, that Negroes as a group do not possess
[as great a capacity for education] as whites as a group. Herskovits once
again maintained that intelligence tests measured experience. Moreover,
he argued that as American Negroes were mostly a mixed racial group
and that no correlation had ever been demonstrated between percentage
of white ancestry and achievement given equal education, racial general-
izations were unacceptable.
Partially inuenced by Wingate Todd, and also by his rst eld trip
during the summer of 1928 to Suriname, Herskovits began to question
the ecacy of anthropometry. In late 1929 Todd suggested to Herskovits
his desire to eliminate anthropometric measurements altogether. . . . I
believe an expert, thoroughly trained in making observations and notes
in the eld with what photographs he can get, should be able to give
53
us enough data to make an adequate anthropological analysis of the
people. Todd maintained that his own studies indicated no distinctions
between White and Negro in such things as growth patterns. This
view ran counter to Herskovitss own ndings.
Agreeing with Todds

position, Herskovits responded, I am not so sure but that much of our
despair over this word race is not due to the fact that we are quite at a
loss to reconcile the physical measurements which I am coming more
and more to feel have little to do with reality and the observational
criteria of physical dierences.
Herskovits sought to convince physical anthropologists to abandon

both their emphases on race categorization and their eorts at relating
race to behavior or intellect. In 1936 he lamented the continuing focus
on race and behavior of the Harvard physical anthropologists, especially
Earnest Hooton. Hooton was then working on an extensive study relat-
ing race and criminality, which would be published in 1939. Herskovits
told Todd that he would like to see anthropometry conceived not only
in the conventional terms of race, and not only in terms of analyses of
growth patterns, but also as the study of the processes of heredity as
manifested in human family lines. One of the reasons I feel that the work
at Harvard is so weak is because of these three elds of physical anthro-
pology,which I regard as the primary ones in our discipline,only
the rst, the taxonomic aspect is given any attention at all.
Despite Herskovitss critique of physical anthropology, as late as 1943

most physical anthropologists continued to focus on categorizing race
and relating race to behavior. Congratulating Herskovits on his arti-
cle on Boass contributions to physical anthropology following Boass
death, anthropologist Leslie Spier lamented the fact that so few physical
anthropologists accorded with Boass point of view. They refused to
give up their dearly-beloved concepts of the xed inheritance of physical
form and of pure races.
The fact that the American Journal of Physical

Anthropology did not even run an obituary for Boas reected the deep
divide among anthropologists.
The race idea had such a powerful hold on even Herskovits that it
limited his willingness to reject completely the use of race as a concept
based on phenotype. In 1927, the same year he had written his denuncia-
tion of intelligence tests as a measure of innate racial intelligence, Hers-
kovits maintained that racial superiority or inferiority doctrines may be
true; or they may not. Certainly neither position has been conclusively
54
established as yet.
This statement paralleled Boass position. Al-

though Boas attacked racist literature and denied the existence of pure
races, his general position on racial intelligence was that there was no
conclusive proof that any race was superior to another. Nevertheless,
Boas occasionally placed blacks as inferior to whites. For example, in
Anthropology and Modern Life (1928) Boas said that there were no pure
races but maintained that serially the Negro brain is less extremely
human than that of the White, because a higher percentage of European
people had a higher brain weight than the Negro population.
Al-
though Herskovits never made statements supporting a racial hierarchy,
he did caution against dogmatic assumptions as to the existence or non-
existence of racial dierences in aptitudes, in intelligence, in special cul-
tural tendencies. At the same time, he rejected the idea of associating
physical type with cultural limitations because any person, regardless of
racial or physical type, had the ability to adopt another culture.
As late as 1949, in a contribution to a four-volume work on Jewish

history, culture, and religion entitled Who Are the Jews? Herskovits,
in rejecting a racial identity for Jews, did so by employing outmoded
classication methods. He discussed the anthropometric problem with
respect to Jews whereby Ashkenazic (central and eastern European)
Jews had undergone brachycephalization . . . that is, their conversion
from a long-headed Mediterranean type to a short-headed form that
characterizes the Alpine subrace of Causcasoids. Thus Spanish Jews had
longer heads than Russian Jews. According to Herskovits, this variation
in cephalic index, along with blood type variations, between Ashkenazic
and Sephardic (Spanish) Jews meant that the idea that the Jews were a
race had to be rejected as untenable. In addition, comparisons of head
form between Jews and non-Jews in central Europe showed similarities
by locality, not religion, conrming a nonracial categorization.
Here
Herskovits, while rejecting the racial categorization for Jews, accepted
the discredited use of long-headedness and short-headedness as determi-
nants of racial category. Curiously, in the same article Herskovits denied
the signicance of race, arguing that it is studies of local types, popula-
tion formations, stability of physical traits under crossing and the plas-
ticity of the organism under dierent environmental conditions that
come to have meaning and lead to signicant results for the study of
human biology.
As a mature scholar Herskovitss views on race were spelled out clearly

55
in one of his major works, his 1947 publication, Man and His Works: The
Science of Cultural Anthropology.
Chapter 9 of Man and His Works,

called Physical Type and Culture, began with the question, What is a
race? Although at the outset Herskovits noted that anthropologists
diered greatly over denitions of race and how to apply them, he re-
fused to reject the traditional use of the concept to divide humanity.
Herskovits wrote, Common usage dies hard, however, and the word
race has been employed for so long a time to designate the larger group-
ings that it would be confusing to change it here. Therefore, in our
discussion we shall, in the conventional manner, call the principal types
of mankind races and use the term sub-race to designate the subordinate
aggregates.
Herskovits then noted the shortcomings of categorizing humans by

physical traits: [T]he outstanding factor in the study of physical types is
variability. . . . [T]he phenomenon of overlapping bulks large in the study
of racial dierences. . . . [T]he dierences between . . . racesare dier-
ences of detail. For example, Herskovits noted that many narrow-nosed
Swedes had broader nostrils than those of the generally broader-nosed
Kajji of the Niger Delta in West Africa.
Because this type of overlap-

ping was the rule and not the exception, Herskovits concluded that
greater dierences exist in the range of physical traits that characterize any
single race of mankind, than between races taken in their entirety.
At this
point one might expect Herskovits to reject the concept of race, but
instead he argued that because there were perceptibly dierent manifes-
tations of the same traits . . . it would merely be a denial of objective
reality to ignore the existence of these dierences. Thus races . . . must
be recognized for what they arecategories based on outer appearance
as reected in scientic measurements or observations that permit us to
make convenient classications of human materials. This classication
then is an important initial step in assessing the biological nature of man
and the relationship this aspect holds to his culture-building tenden-
cies.
Herskovits then listed the three racesCaucasoid, Mongoloid,

and Negroidand their subraces. He maintained that race studies re-
quired studies of genetics, concluding that due to interbreeding of pop-
ulations there were no pure races. Moreover, Herskovits noted, From
a genetic point of view . . . a race is to be viewed . . . as a series of family
lines. These family lines produced individuals who resemble each other
to the degree that they were the product of similar genetic strains. This
56
groupwhich Herskovits called a populationrather than a race, was
the proper subject of analysis. Thus Herskovits discussed variation in
two ways: the old, focusing on external physical traits using the con-
cept of race, and the new, focusing on genetics and family lines and
populations.
The compelling question was whether all this information on physical

dierences, dierences among populations, races, and racial intermix-
ing served any scientic purpose. Although Boas and Herskovits used
biometric technique to challenge those who employed pseudoscientic
techniques to prove racial superiority or inferiority, at the same time
they validated the continued emphasis on race and physical dierences
for purposes of scientic analysis.
If we compare the chapter on race in Man and His Works with the cor-
responding chapter in a 1963 textbook by Paul Bohannon, we can
see Herskovits still rooted in the traditional discourse though pushing
hard against those roots, while Bohannons more modern treatment
rejects phenotype as a useful scientic category.
Writing about fteen

years after Herskovits, in a chapter appropriately called The Chimera of
Race, Bohannon sought to shatter the whole paradigm of analyzing
physical dierences and rejected the idea that race was a useful concept
for biology or science, although it remained a useful sociological con-
cept. Bohannon argued that unless race could be employed as a useful
category for scientic research, it should be rejected.
The genetics
revolution in racial theory changed the focus from phenotypes (external
characteristics) to genotypes (genetic makeup). Bohannon maintained
that as the anthropometric measurement of various physical traits was
irrelevant to a biological classication, they were useless.
Herskovits, along with some other physical anthropologists of the

1930s and 1940s, did reject the notion of a pure race based on trait
clusters. Other physical anthropologists, even after making this determi-
nation, continued their research on racial categories. Herskovits spent
the next thirty-ve years studying culture, though occasionally dabbling
in anthropometry, because he probably realized that there was nowhere
to go with an analysis of physical characteristics with little scientic
relevance. As Bohannon pointed out, scientists interested in biological
inuence on human traits, after the genetics revolution, would be geneti-
cists, but Herskovits and others preceded this transformation.
Herskovits tried to have it both ways. He wanted to continue the tra-

57
ditional biometric methods of physical anthropologists and also move
into the future by embracing a more complex relationship between
phenotype and genotype. But without an understanding of genetics, he
was unwilling to reject the traditional methodology. Thus, as a physical
anthropologist, Herskovits was a transitional gure among anthropolo-
gists interpreting race, moving toward the future but also stuck in the
past. Nevertheless, as he returned to his earlier interestcultural an-
thropologyhe would make even stronger contributions to undermin-
ing notions of racial hierarchy, as his scholarship attacked notions of
cultural as well as racial inequality.
59
chapter three
Transforming the Debate on
Black Culture
If a person stirs up a hole,
he will nd what is in it.
Suriname Maroon proverb
W
ith the completion of his physical anthropology
study, Herskovits undertook a series of acculturation studies
that helped transform the debate on American cultural iden-
tity. Stimulated by his work on American blacks, he formulated a plan to
study the cultures of diasporic Africans. This plan led to fteen years of
eldwork in Africa and the Americas that challenged both academic and
popular views on black culture. Herskovits launched this eldwork from
his new home in Evanston, Illinois, following his hiring by Northwest-
ern University as its rst anthropology professor in 1927.
Herskovitss eldwork in Suriname, Dahomey, Haiti, Trinidad, and

Brazil compelled him to repudiate his assimilationist perspective. Ini-
tially arguing that African culture had no inuence on African American
culture, by 1930 Herskovits concluded that black cultures throughout
the Americas were strongly inuenced by African cultures. Moreover,
he demonstrated the dynamism and complexity of African and African
American cultures at a time when most Americans accepted the notion of
black inferiority. Meanwhile, by convincing anthropologists to accept
acculturation studies as a vital part of the discipline, Herskovits laid
the foundation for a dynamic view of cultural change that emphasized
cultural diversity. In his study of the physical anthropology of black
Americans, he had helped undermine Victorian certainties about a xed
racial hierarchy. With his research in Africa and the Americas, Herskovits
Transforming the Debate on Black Culture
60
undercut received notions of a cultural hierarchy and challenged the
idea that white Anglo-Saxon Protestant culture solely dened American
culture.
The 1920s debates on American culture and identity inclined Hersko-
vits toward his acculturation studies. Americans had long debated these
issues. While racists and nativists circumscribed visions of American
identity, egalitarians divided between unitary and pluralist conceptions
of America culture. Which cultural groups could by right be Americans?
Was America to be conned to Europeans and their descendants, who
melted into a new race of men, as the eighteenth-century writer
Michel-Guillaume Jean de Crvecoeur maintained in 1782?
Or would
America include all those who crossed its shores? And would the diverse
groups that lived in the United States melt together into one culture, or
would they maintain distinctive cultural characteristics?
During the early 1900s the huge inux of southern and eastern Euro-
pean immigrants and the question of African Americans position in
American society made American identity the subject of an intense na-
tional debate among intellectuals, politicians, and the general popula-
tion. In this period conservativesracists and nativistsemployed the
concept of dierence to subjugate blacks and other racial and cultural
minorities, women, and the lower classes by associating dierence with
the notion of deviance while simultaneously justifying such assumptions
through an appeal to science, biology, nature, or culture. Dierence was
used as a way to exclude blacks and immigrants from mainstream social
and political life.
During the 1910s and 1920s nativists sought to dene

America as a land exclusively for Protestant Anglo-Americans. To ensure
success for their vision, they hoped to exclude southern and eastern
Europeans, whom they considered inferior and therefore incapable of
assimilation into Anglo-American culture.
Similarly, most white Ameri-

cans, blinded by racism, also viewed African Americans and Asian Amer-
icans as barred from assimilation under any circumstances.
By contrast, liberal egalitarians sought to minimize cultural or racial

dierences in support of a melting pot theory of culture. Liberals em-
braced the assimilation of diverse racial and cultural groups on the basis
of equality. Consequently, liberal assimilationists rejected cultural par-
ticularism and the championing of cultural dierences.
Thus liberals
emphasized the absence of racial and cultural dierences in their ad-
vocacy of a melting pot culture that denied the particularity of black
61
culture and immigrant cultures. The melting pot concept, however,
meant dierent things to dierent groups. For example, in Israel Zan-
gwills 1908 play The Melting-Pot, the hero proclaims, The real Ameri-
can has not arrived. He is only in the Crucible, I tell youhe will be the
fusion of all races, the coming superman. This formulation assumed a
fusion of races into a new race, the American.
During the early twen-

tieth century, however, the melting pot concept was generally associ-
ated with forced Americanization. The movement to require immi-
grants to discard their Old World cultural identities gained especially
strong support during and after the First World War. During the war
old-line Americans feared that the primary loyalty of immigrants (espe-
cially those from enemy nations, Germany and Austria-Hungary) was to
their countries of origin, not the United States. After the war they
blamed immigrants for the wave of radical violence. The Americaniza-
tion movement sought to ensure that immigrants would conform to
Anglo-American culture, the old-line Americans view of the nations
culture.
Postwar events reected a continuing popular allegiance to Anglo-

American superiority. In fact, this era saw a great drive for immigration
restriction based in part on pseudoscientic racism. The resurgence of
the Ku Klux Klan, reaching a membership of over three million in the
1920s, revealed the strength of racist and nativist feeling targeted against
Catholics, Jews, and African Americans. Nativist agitation led to the
passage in 1924 of the National Origins Act, which substantially re-
duced immigration from southern and eastern Europe and excluded
Asian immigrants.
For Herskovits, the debate on American identity was not just an aca-
demic issue. His experience as the son of Jewish immigrants, as one who
had taken up and then rejected rabbinical studies, as one who had experi-
enced anti-Semitism, as a war veteran, and as an advocate of leftist poli-
tics made the question of identity a very personal one, too. These ex-
periences and his sensitivity to questions of identity and assimilation
foreshadowed his interests as a teacher and practitioner of anthropology.
As a young anthropologist, Herskovits, like other racially liberal
scholars, allowed his assimilationist bias to lead him to discount the
inuence of African culture in America. In the social climate of the 1920s,
when dierence was generally dened as pejorative, many black and
Jewish scholars, including Herskovits, diminished the dierences be-
62
tween their own identities and mainstream American identity. In order
to undermine racial discrimination and refute theories of black inequal-
ity based on racial dierences, Herskovits minimized the dierences be-
tween the cultures of blacks and whites. Toward that end, he argued that
American blacks had absorbed mainstream American culture and that
there was no distinct black culture. Up until his rst ethnographic eld
trip, he held to this view, which was the dominant scholarly view at
the time. Herskovitss assimilationist position paralleled the views of
most mainstream sociologists, including the leading specialist on race
relations, Robert Park of the University of Chicago, who rejected cul-
tural pluralism as either desirable or realizable. Sociologists believed
that cultural pluralism reinforced dierences that resulted in hostility,
stereotypes, and prejudice. For them, modern society required the dis-
solution of traditional, particularistic identities.
But while sociologists and the general population agreed that assimi-
lation was benecial for European immigrants, most Americans rejected
racial assimilation for African Americans and Asian Americans. More-
over, as James McKee has observed, Most sociologists accepted with
little evident regret the segregation of a people still deemed vastly in-
ferior and saw no possible change in the foreseeable future.
Park, who had worked as a publicist for Booker T. Washington at

Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute from 1905 to 1912, depicted
racial and ethnic relations as a gradual process with four evolutionary
stages: competition, conict, accommodation, and assimilation. Park
generally dened assimilation as representing an exchange of cultural
elements by two groups in which the two groups merged.
Nonethe-
less, when Park discussed African Americans culture contact with white
Americans, he tended to derogate black culture. He believed that the
Negro, when he landed in the United States, left behind him almost
everything but his dark complexion and his tropical temperament.
Park also asserted that African Americans were unique among all peoples
in the United States in having no external tradition. He explained dier-
ences between black American culture and white American culture by
referring to a naturally distinctive racial temperament of blacks, which
gave them a genial, sunny and social disposition and conditioned them
to expression rather than enterprise and action. In the case of African
Americans, the Park School presumed that the assimilation of African
Americans would mean their adoption of the stronger, superior white
63
American culture. According to this view, the only barrier to the assimi-
lation of blacks into mainstream American society was the evolutionary
nature of intergroup interaction or racial temperament.
Parks analysis
ignored the African inuence on American culture and rejected a dy-
namic, dialectical or multivariate model of culture change. Therefore
Park and his students argued that the weak black culture would even-
tually melt into the dominant white American culture.
Herskovits made his strongest statement of the assimilationist posi-
tion in his 1925 contribution to The New Negro, the collection of prose
and poetry by Harlem Renaissance writers edited by Alain Locke.
The
idea for The New Negro was developed at a 1924 dinner in New York
attended by prominent white and black editors and writers in which Paul
Kellogg, editor of the Survey Graphic, suggested to Charles S. Johnson,
editor of Opportunity, that the Survey Graphic devote an entire issue to
black writers and artists. Johnson liked the idea and recommended that
Kellogg ask Locke to organize and edit the special Harlem issue.
This
issue succeeded earlier issues devoted to various nationalities, including
the Russian, Irish, and Mexican.
Locke agreed to edit the special Harlem number and sought to pre-
sent a graphic picture of the progressive types, tendencies, and points of
view of the Negro. He contacted several black writers and a few white
writers who were expert on some aspect of black America. Based on
his familiarity with Herskovitss work on the physical anthropology of
American Negroes, Locke asked Herskovits to contribute an article, a
short but very important thing on Has the Negro a Unique Social
Pattern?
Herskovitss article, The Dilemma of Social Pattern, based on his

previous research as well as informal visits to Harlem, concluded that
black culture was the same as white culture. Herskovits reported that the
Harlem community was just like any other American community. The
same pattern, only a dierent shade! Moreover, he asserted that blacks
had completely assimilated American culture. Finally, and most surpris-
ing in view of his later position, Herskovits found not a trace of Afri-
can culture. He maintained that even the spirituals are an expression of
the Negro playing through the typical religious pattern of white Amer-
ica.
By emphasizing the similarities between black and white culture,

Herskovits would undercut racists emphasis on racial or cultural dier-
ences as evidence of black inferiority.
64
Herskovitss conclusions contrasted with those of most of the other
contributors to The New Negro.
While Herskovits highlighted the simi-

larities between black and white culture, many of the writers in this
volume emphasized the distinctiveness of black culture. Alain Locke
underscored African Americans renewed race-spirit that consciously
and proudly sets itself apart.
Locke oered the spirituals, with their

untarnishable beauty and their universal appeal, as evidence of Ne-
groes race genius.
Arthur Hu Fauset wrote about Negro folklore

and its African inuence.
Albert Barnes asserted that Negroes, unlike

whites, were natural-born poets.
Joel A. Rogers called jazz one part

American and three parts American Negro. Preceded by ragtime, jazz
was infused with the African inuence.
Arthur A. Schomburg stressed

the critical, yet neglected, contributions that African Americans had
made to American history. Moreover, Schomburg asserted that scientic
study would reveal the signicance of Africa in world history and the
African cultural inuence on African Americans.
Nevertheless, from 1925 to 1927 Herskovits continued to disseminate

his view that black culture was the same as white culture. He advised
a correspondent that he did not think any African culture could be
observed in any of the modes of behavior of the American Negro. Al-
though he cautioned that this was merely my private opinion, Hersko-
vits insisted that due to the tremendous variation in African customs,
to speak of almost anything as African is quite inadmissable.
In a December 1927 article, published only six months before he

undertook his rst eld trip to Suriname, Herskovits wrote that blacks
had imbibed the same values as other Americans. He pointed out that
black Americans, like white Americans, demonstrated antagonistic atti-
tudes toward foreigners. In addition, Herskovits argued that blacks evi-
denced a similar type of color consciousness as the general population.
He maintained that black men tended to choose wives who had lighter
complexions than they did because light complexion conferred higher
status. Black men, just like white men, chose a particular bride based on
the enhanced status she would confer on her husband. Moreover, Hers-
kovits cited the writings of German musicologist Erich M. Von Horn-
bostel, head of the Laboratory of Primitive Music at the Institute of
Psychology in the University of Berlin, to argue that not even the
musical form of the American negro is essentially African.
Herskovitss assimilationism was exemplied by his usage of the term

65
acculturation. In 1927, prior to his rst eld trip to Suriname, Hersko-
vits dened acculturation as a body of people accepting in toto the
culture of an alien group.
In employing this denition and applying it

to the acculturation of blacks into white American culture, Herskovits
ignored or devalued the distinctive aspects of black American culture.
This view approximated, in part, the late-nineteenth-century anthropo-
logical perspective on acculturation. In 1880 John Wesley Powell, di-
rector of the Bureau of American Ethnology, had written of the force
of acculturation which was changing indigenous traditions under the
overwhelming presence of millions of civilized people.
Although
Herskovits did not employ this type of value judgment, he did assume a
one-sided cultural change. Moreover, like other intellectuals of this pe-
riod, Herskovits made no distinction between the meaning of accultura-
tion and assimilation and used the former term in an inconsistent man-
ner.
In fact, prior to the late 1930s acculturation was rarely used in its
modern sense of cross-cultural change, in which both cultures undergo a
change.
Herskovitss confusing use of the term acculturation in 1927

was the norm at that time.
After receiving a critique from sociologist Malcolm Willey, his close
friend and former college roommate, Herskovits began to reassess his
conception of acculturation. Willey pointed out that while Herskovits
dened acculturation as total acceptance of an alien culture, he only
provided evidence of the acceptance of certain cultural traits. Willey
suggested that when someone who grew up in one culture moved to
another area, that persons culture would be modied by the new cultural
experience. Willey proposed that this experience should be called re-
acculturation, as acculturation should be dened as the process whereby
one learns ones own native culture. (Herskovits would later use the term
enculturation for this process.) Willey maintained that Herskovits em-
ployed the term acculturation to describe dierent processes. An immi-
grant coming to America and the child of the immigrant born in America
go through two dierent processes, not the same, as Herskovits de-
scribed. Thus Willey rejected Herskovitss analysis of Harlem Negroes
culture. Instead, Willey concluded, The Negro isnt reacculturating be-
cause he isnt taking over an alien culture. You discuss the problem of the
Negro throughout your paper on this basis. . . . The Negro is doing just
what you and I doadjusts to the culture surrounding him in the place
of birth. That is acculturation; if the Negro went to live in Syria hed have
66
to reacculturate. . . . And there is need to clear the line between borrow-
ing and reacculturation. It seems to me that the Pilgrim fathers did not
reacculturatethey merely borrowed [maize, for example].
Herskovits told Willey that for the Negro experience, he meant to use
the term acculturation in the sense of an individual brought up in one
country, transported into another. Herskovits maintained that when
Africans were brought to America, they had to accustom themselves to
our civilization.
Herskovitss views during this period suggest that his

assimilationist perspective led him to minimize dierences between
black and white culture. In doing so, Herskovits also evidenced a cultural
chauvinism that assumed that cultural traits that were similar between
blacks and whites meant that blacks adopted white traits and not the
reverse or some more dynamic, two-way cultural exchange. Thus he
argued that Africans adopted our civilization; or, as he asserted at the
end of his article, American negroes . . . [are] living the life of white
Americans.
Herskovits made this claim based on the Boasian goal

of undermining the belief that biological race determined behavior. If
American blacks evidenced similar cultural traits as American whites,
then race had no impact on behavior.
Nonetheless, for several reasons Herskovits began to explore the pos-
sibility of African cultural inuences on African Americans. His under-
standing of Boass conception of culture inclined him toward viewing
environmental inuences, and not naturally predetermined racial en-
dowment, as the key to an understanding of culture and culture change.
In his study of folklore, Boas attributed changes in Native American
myths to the interaction of foreign and domestic material consistent
with the social conditions and habits of the people. Indeed, in 1898
Boas employed the term survival (which Herskovits would use) to
identify the preservation of earlier customs or fragments of earlier
traditions under modied social conditions.
Boas also emphasized the

importance of studying present-day culture and the dynamic nature of
culture, and not searching for some presumed true or authentic past
version of a tradition.
Furthermore, Herskovitss knowledge of African culturegained in

his graduate studiesinduced him to explore the possibility of African
cultural inuences. Thus when Herskovits noticed the distinctive motor
behavior of his black research assistant (Zora Neale Hurston) during his
study of physical anthropology and dierences between white and black
67
speaking and singing styles, he sought to explain these cultural dier-
ences.
As Herskovits was already interested in African cultures, it was

natural that he would consider the inuence of these cultures on African
Americans.
At the same time, Herskovits began to feel a dissonance between his
assimilationism and the embrace of cultural pluralism by many of his
intellectual friends, including the Harlem Renaissance writers. Hersko-
vitss close association with some of the New Negro writers led him to
consider the possibility of black cultural distinctiveness. He could not
help but be inuenced by Lockes perspective given their extensive inter-
action and correspondence during this period. Furthermore, in 1926,
after acknowledging James Weldon Johnsons view that many of the
songs of black Americans evidenced an African inuence, Herskovits
suggested that the question needed to be subjected to scientic study.
The group of intellectuals, led by Horace Kallen, a Jewish immigrant

from Germany who championed cultural pluralism while rejecting as-
similationism, also inuenced Herskovits.
Kallen, who Herskovits met

at the New School, maintained that true Americanism lay in the conser-
vation and actual fostering of group dierences, not in melting them
down or contributing them.
Before Kallen, a number of liberal intellectuals articulated and dis-

seminated cultural pluralist views. Leader of the social settlement house
movement Jane Addams and educator John Dewey saw value in im-
migrant cultures. Randolph Bourne argued forcefully for a culturally
pluralistic democracy. In 1916, in an essay entitled Trans-national
America, Bourne asserted that Anglo-Saxon America was guilty of the
imposition of its own culture upon the minority peoples.
Bourne
maintained that immigrants had given America its dynamic quality and
that without continued immigration, America would become a stagnant
culture devoid of creativity. Indeed, Bourne insisted that there was no
such thing as an American culture, rather America was a federation
of cultures.
Well before Bourne and Kallen, W. E. B. Du Bois had articulated a

cultural pluralist view by rejecting the type of assimilation that devalued
ones cultural heritage.
In his 1897 speech before the American Negro

Academy entitled The Conservation of Races, Du Bois, inuenced by
the romantic nationalism of the German writers Johann von Herder,
Johann Fichte, and Heinrich von Treitschke, among others, argued that
68
Negroes around the world had a unique contribution to make to human-
ity.
Therefore Du Bois insisted that for American blacks to help the race
reach its potential and be a factor in the worlds history, they must avoid
absorption by the white Americans, and their destiny [must] not [be]
a servile imitation of Anglo-Saxon culture.
Du Bois, however, es-

chewed separatism. He argued that emphasizing racial dierences would
not necessarily increase racial separation and racial prejudice. Instead, Du
Bois maintained that if . . . there is substantial agreement in laws, lan-
guage, and religion . . . then there is no reason why, in the same country
and on the same street, two or three great national ideals might not thrive
and develop, that men of dierent races might not strive together for
their race ideals as well, perhaps even better, than in isolation.
In The Souls of Black Folk (1903) Du Bois moved away from Victorian
notions of race and embraced a more modern view, surmounting the
assimilation-separation dialectic, substituting the notion of a double-
consciousness for blacks, and thereby changing the nature of the debate
on race in America. Would blacks gain their freedom by assimilating into
white America? Or would blacks win their freedom by escaping the
connes of a discourse based on white superiority and black inferiority by
developing their own discourse? As David L. Lewis has pointed out,
Henceforth, the destiny of the race could be conceived as leading neither
to assimilation nor separatism but to proud, enduring hyphenation.
During the 1920s and 1930s several cultural movements adopted a cul-
tural identication separate from Anglo-Americanism. These included
the Southern Agrarians, who oered a communal vision based on the
Old South; the writers of the Harlem Renaissance, who embraced black
culture; and the movement for American Indian cultural survival led by
John Collier, commissioner of Indian Aairs from 1933 to 1945.
Inspired by the debate over cultural pluralism and black culture, in

1926 Herskovits formulated a plan for long-term study of black cul-
tures in Africa and the Americas to discover the African origins of the
New WorldNegro.
Herskovits proposed to focus on the African cul-

tural heritage of New World blacks to determine the degree to which
culture and biology conditioned Negroes response to life in the Ameri-
cas. Herskovits sought cultural and physical connections between West
African, West Indian, and southern American Negroes.
Herskovitss
study would rectify the failure of researchers to focus on this issue.

69
Despite his inability to obtain foundation funding for his plan, he pro-
ceeded to implement the proposal piecemeal over the next fteen years.
While the foundations considered his proposal, Herskovits began a

lengthy correspondence with German musicologist Erich M. Von Horn-
bostel that reveals a subtle change in his views as he began to explore the
possibility of African inuences on black American culture.
In these
letters Herskovits scrutinized his own position on the inuence of Afri-
can culture in the Americas. After exchanging notes on their respective
areas of researchHerskovits on Negro anthropometry, Hornbostel on
African and African American musicthe two debated the question of
motor behavior within racial groups.
Hornbostel argued that motor

behavior was an innate physiological characteristic transmitted along
racial lines, unaected by cultural environment. Hornbostel based his
position on his own family experience while growing up in Vienna,
where he evidenced much the same movements as his uncle who lived
in Hamburg. Hornbostel claimed that all American Indians, regardless
of culture or physical environment, had similar motor behavior.
Hers-
kovits rejected Hornbostels racial argument, insisting that motor be-
havior was based on environmental inuence and was transmitted as a
cultural pattern. Herskovits conceive[d] human beings as being very
fundamentally conditioned . . . by the manner of behavior of the people
among whom they happen to be born. Herskovitss view was reinforced
by his physical anthropology study, which concluded that American
Negroes were, in fact, not even a race. Thus behavioral similarities
among Negroes could not be racially determined but must be due to
cultural inuences. Herskovits suggested that this cultural conditioning
might explain Hornbostels contention that African and American Ne-
groes both exhibited similar singing behavior. Herskovits then posed the
possibility of an African cultural survival: For could it [similar singing
behavior] not be a cultural remnant brought to America by the African
slaves, which their descendants retained even after the songs themselves
were fundamentally changed according to the European pattern? Simi-
larly, Herskovits told Hornbostel of Zora Neale Hurstons distinctive
speech, singing, and motor behavior, a style that would be termed
typically Negro. As Hurston was a mulatto, Herskovits argued that
motor behavior or other behaviors must have been passed down as
learned behavior and not through biological inheritance of race.
Hers-
kovits suggested that Hurstons characteristic style of singing and speak-
70
ing was carried over as a behavior pattern handed down thru imitation
and example from the original African slaves who were brought here.
Throughout 192728 Herskovits, though still skeptical, continued to

consider the possibility of African cultural survivals. During this period
he studied the Grebo language with a West African teacher. Herskovits
noted that the songs our West African sings for us are unbelievably
beautiful, but nothing like either jazz or Negro spirituals.
Neverthe-
less, Herskovits believed his language study was important as a lead to
the discovery of possible linguistic survivals at present existing among
American Negroes.
After the foundations turned down his request to nance his eld
research into African American acculturation, Herskovits sought other
sources of funding. Franz Boas suggested that Herskovits contact Elsie
Clews Parsons. Parsons (18741941), an anthropologist and folklorist
of independent means and the rst associate of Boass to study black
culture, nanced a number of anthropologists eld studies.
Recently,
Roger D. Abrahams said of Parsons, More than anyone else, Parsons
began the new-world Afro-American eldwork and generally energized
that whole endeavor, sustaining it until a Hurston and a Herskovitz [sic]
could catch hold.
Parsons told Herskovits that Suriname (then Dutch

Guiana) would be a fruitful area for research into African survivals in
The New World and then proceeded to nance his two eld trips to that
region.
Herskovits was drawn to Suriname because there was a signicant

black population that had remained largely separate from the European-
descended population since slavery. The Suriname Maroons (then
known as the Bush Negroes) were descended from escaped slaves who
had established their own communities during the late seventeenth cen-
tury.
Herskovits believed that the Suriname Maroons represented

the best possibility for discovering the African cultural and geographic
origins of New World blacks because the Maroons isolation limited
European cultural inuence and the Maroons environment in Suriname
closely approximated their ancestral homeland in Africa. Of the three
Suriname Maroon tribes, Herskovits concentrated on the Saramacca,
who lived along the northern part of the Suriname River, because they
had lived most independently of outside inuence. By comparing the
culture of the urban blacks with a strong European inuence to that of
the Saramacca, Herskovits believed he could discern the varying degrees
71
of African culture remaining in Suriname.
Thus a study of Suriname

seemed to provide the best chance of discovering African culture in the
New World. After contacting Morton C. Kahn (who would join Hers-
kovits on the rst Suriname eld trip), a Cornell medical college epi-
demiologist who had been to Suriname the previous year, and reviewing
Kahns eld notes, Herskovits reported that Suriname seems to be a sort
of ethnological happy hunting-grounds.
With funding from Parsons augmented by the Columbia University

Social Science Research Council, Herskovits and his wife, Frances, trav-
eled to Suriname during the summers of 1928 and 1929. Although Fran-
ces had no formal anthropology training, she became her husbands
lifelong research and writing partner, co-writing ve books and several
articles. At rst Boas and Parsons discouraged the idea of Frances joining
the initial eld trip due to the dangers of traveling in the Tropics. Hers-
kovits, however, convinced them that Frances would be essential to get-
ting better access to the women in the culture. In addition, Kahns expe-
rience with the region and his expertise in tropical diseases mitigated any
danger.
On his decision to work with his wife, Herskovits later com-

mented, A eld party of a man and wife is ideal . . . because it facilitates
study of both sexes. And shes a damn good anthropologist, toonot a
formal anthropologistbut damn good.
The Herskovitses and Kahn sailed from New York in June 1928 and
arrived in Paramaribo, the capital of Suriname, the following month. On
the way they stopped in Haiti, Curaao, the Venezuelan coast, Trinidad,
and British Guiana. Upon arrival in Suriname, Herskovits and Kahn
journeyed to the interior to study the Saramacca Maroons. Meanwhile,
Frances Herskovits studied the town Negroes in Paramaribo. This rst
eld trip was no picnic for the young anthropologist. He suered vari-
ous ailments, including an infected leg, heavy bleeding from a wound, a
sore throat, a full-body rash, a skin infection, and high fever. While laid
up in bed, he was moved to exclaim, Black buzzards and green tomcats!
Its enough to make strong men weep! Nonetheless, Herskovits could
not have been more pleased with the results of his rst experience of
ethnographic eldwork.
For their second eld trip the next summer, the Herskovitses again
sailed from New York in June, arriving in Paramaribo in early July. They
spent most of this trip with the Saramacca Maroons, a few days in Auka
villages, and some time collecting folklore from town Negroes.
On
72
this trip, unlike the rst, Frances Herskovits accompanied her husband
into the interior to study the Maroons. Hence, a Colorado newspaper
published an article entitled Woman Explorer Plans Study of Savage
Women, which reported that Mrs. Melville J. Herskovits of North-
western University, expects to be the rst white woman to enter the
Suriname River bush country.
Herskovitss eld trips to Suriname set the pattern for his future eld-
work. His research method was to enlist informants to discuss their
culture. He also observed rituals and other everyday occurrences of life
among the Suriname Negroes.
To document the material culture and

other cultural traits, Herskovits collected artifacts, recorded music, and
took motion pictures and still photographs.
Herskovits rarely spent

more than a few months on a single eld trip. He believed that it was
unnecessary to learn his subjects language in advance, although he did
sometimes pick up a bit of the language during his research. In lieu of
linguistic literacy, Herskovits generally used pidgin dialects and inter-
preters.
By the end of his rst Suriname trip, Herskovits could speak

some taki-taki, the dialect of the Maroons.
Herskovitss uency in
French, acquired during his study at the University of Poitiers following
the end of the First World War, helped him in his eldwork in Dahomey
(a French colony) and Haiti.
Herskovits was often criticized, notably by British anthropologists,
for conducting relatively short eld trips instead of living for long peri-
ods of time among the people he was studying.
More recently, anthro-

pologist Richard Price called the Herskovitses eld work in Suriname
brief and by modern standards supercial, although he conceded that
their book [on Suriname] succeeds . . . in conveying a convincing
portrait of village life, insofar as a traveler could observe it.
Herskovits
asserted that due to his and his wifes preparation, knowledge of Negro
cultures, and eciency, they could do quite a bit in a short period of
time. For example, Herskovits maintained that they were able in two
days in Barbados, . . . on the basis of our background, to establish the
presence of a number of African traits of culture that had never been
noticed before.
Herskovits also insisted that repeated trips to related

cultures mitigated the necessity of a single extended eld trip. Yet Hers-
kovits did not expect British anthropologists to change their views, as
the dogma in Britain, handed down from the historical accident of
[Bronislaw] Malinowskis stay among the Trobriands [Malinowski was
73
stuck there due to the outbreak of World War I], is that you cant really
do anything unless you stay at least three years and learn the language!
In any event, Herskovitss methods, employing informants and conduct-

ing eld trips that lasted several months, were fairly common at the
time, especially among anthropologists who did eldwork among Na-
tive American cultures. The brief duration of the eld trips was due, in
part, to the limited funding available.
The Herskovitses rst eld trips represented a kind of seasoning for

the young anthropologists as they accustomed themselves to the expe-
rience of eldwork in an unfamiliar culture. Their inexperience, their
American arrogance, and their desire to get as much information as
possible in a brief period led to contention and danger on their second
Suriname eld trip. Simon Ottenberg, a Herskovits student, later com-
mented that Herskovits was a man in a hurry.
In a ten-day visit to one Saramacca village, the home of the Saramacca

headman, the more the Herskovitses pressed for information, the more
the headman resisted. At one point Frances suggested that they leave,
telling her husband, weve gone so deeply into the religious and cere-
monial life that we can get nothing more and that the old fellow [the
headman] is getting a bit uneasy. Although Herskovits initially dis-
agreed with his wife, he soon changed his mind. Reecting his concern,
he wrote in his journal, But were alone in the interior, and Fann
[Frances] thinks my question of last night, when I mentioned the name
of Agun, the Nigerian god of man and iron, and whom they know, with
Kromanti, which is undoubtedly their standing army and a secret so-
ciety for protection thoroughly alarmed them. In a very anxious state,
the Herskovitses decided to leave the next day. Inventing an excuse, they
told the headman that they needed to leave because the cook was ill.
Indicative of the potential danger, during their last night in the village
the headman sang a song about how Francess belly should stop pro-
ducing and that we [the Herskovits party] all ought to die. After they
left, the Herskovitses noted that [the villagers] think they hoodwinked
us on such matters as the name of the earth-mother and those of the lo
[clan], . . . and Im sure if they knew how much we really had, it would
go harder. As the Herskovitses left, they nervously wondered if the
Saramacca would try anything on the river.
In their desire to understand the Maroon culture, the Herskovitses

had transgressed Saramacca cultural practices and violated their code of
74
behavior. Without the establishment of proper trust, certain knowledge
was not revealed to outsiders. A ten-day visit was not nearly long enough
to establish the trust of the people. Moreover, by pressing for informa-
tion, the Herskovitses alienated the village headman.
In their pub-
lished account of the eld trip, the Herskovitses described the Saramacca
peoples general distrust of whites. The Saramacca believed that whites
would use the knowledge they gained against them. Nonetheless, the
Herskovitses did not mention their feelings of anxiety and fear, nor did
they reveal their early departure due to the antagonism caused by their
attempts to delve deeper into the secret cultural and spiritual beliefs of
the people.
Although in many ways the Herskovitses were very respectful of the

Suriname Negroes, their practice of bargaining for material goods also
brought them into conict with the Suriname Negroes. During the rst
trip, the Herskovitses bargained for a total of 134 items, including a
parrot. Although they were told that a game called adji-boto was shared
village property, the Herskovitses insisted on bargaining for it. After
purchasing the game, Herskovits noted that there was great regret in
the village at losing the board, as apparently everyone played with it.
By using their superior economic resources, the Herskovitses were able

to entice the Maroons to sell property that they would have preferred to
keep. Moreover, as anthropologists Sally Price and Richard Price have
argued, the Herskovitses had again violated the cultural practices of the
Maroons, who considered bargaining rude and excessive.
Despite his cultural insensitivity and his arrogance, Herskovitss rst

eld trip transformed his views on the African cultural inuence in the
Americas. Alluding to his own experience, he later wrote, How many of
us [anthropologists] . . . [have had] the experience of going to the
eld with conceptions of the people and their life, and with problems that
have had to be revised, often radically, in the face of actual data?
Al-
though Herskovits had expected to nd some African inuence among
the Suriname Maroons due to their longtime isolation from European
cultural inuences, he was astounded at how quickly he discovered Afri-
can cultural elements. Soon after arriving in Suriname for the rst time,
Herskovits made a journal entry that reected his great excitement at
learning of a possible African survival: Last night [A. C.] Van Lier [a
Dutch ocial] told us of the custom (he said it was African!) of burning
a light all night on the anniversary of [some]ones death.
Upon visit-
75
ing a Djuka village, he noted that a fetish that he described as a crude
representation of a human gure coated with mud . . . looked very
African. Herskovits called an obeah (a charm with supernatural force
used to protect people from harm) made of carved skulls Curiously
African! The houses and the fetishes, the naked children and the cica-
trised [ritually scarred] grown-ups were all reminiscent of Africa. In-
deed, he found that the village as a whole certainly looks like pictures
from AfricaCongo and West.
Studying the political and social organization, linguistics and phonet-

ics, marriage ceremonies, and economic and material life of the Sara-
macca Maroons, Herskovits found many African cultural correspon-
dences, perhaps most notably in the spiritual realm.
After witnessing
an obia-dance; an unforgettable religious rite, he found the Maroons
use of the drums, the dancing and singing, and the dancers possessed by
spirits remarkable for their Africanness as well as the controlled nature of
the movements. Herskovits was also impressed by the importance in this
culture of the belief in magic that he found similar to many African
cultures. As he had not yet been to Africa, Herskovits relied on his
secondhand study of African cultures in making these connections.
Herskovitss experience of music in Suriname transformed his view of

the cultural inuences on African American music. A trained musician
who had studied the violin for years in his youth and could also play the
piano and drums, Herskovits used this expertise to analyze the music of
other cultures.
One night during his rst eld trip, the sound of singing
and the beat of a kiva-kiva awakened Herskovits. He got out of his
hammock, went outside, and gasped at the beauty of the night. . . . [A]
man chanted in a high tenor and never ranging more than an octave and
always descending in tone,to be followed by the incredible high so-
prano chorus of the women. Again, Africa.
Herskovits found that

even in the capital city of Paramaribo, which had long had a large Euro-
pean population, Negroes had preserved many African rhythms and
songs.
In November 1929 Herskovits wrote to Hornbostel that the

songs of the Suriname blacks ranged from those that were entirely
African to music that is entirely European. Several of the Suriname
songs reminded Herskovits of American Negro spirituals.
In addition,
the songs of the Suriname Maroons contained African deities in them.
After hearing the Suriname recordings Herskovits sent him, even Horn-
bostel was convinced of the African nature of the songs. I was quite
76
surprised how little is the white inuence on these songs! All the exam-
ples I heard, and even those which you found resembling U.S.A. Spiri-
tuals seem to me very African, remarked Hornbostel.
Meanwhile, Herskovits found signicant African cultural elements in

the social relationships of the Suriname Maroons, including the impor-
tance of the belief in matrilineality and the inuence of the mothers
brother over the children.
The paternal spiritual and religious inuence

resembled that found among West Africans.
Herskovits argued that in

its aspects of maternal descent with recognition of the paternal side
through inheritance of the kina or food taboo from the father, [Suri-
name Maroon culture] is reminiscent of certain of the tribes of West
Africa in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Nigeria and elsewhere.
Following his second eld trip to Suriname, Herskovits reported that

there was a signicant linguistic connection between the vocabulary and
grammar of the Suriname Negroes and West African languages. The
Suriname Negroes used the names of West African tribes for the names
of their clans. In addition, numerous religious terms used by the Suri-
name Maroons were Dahomey or Ashanti words, such as the name for
the earth mother and the word for the sky.
The correspondences in
language, religion, music, and family convinced Herskovits that the es-
sential origins of the Suriname Maroon culture lay along the West Afri-
can coast between the Ashanti on the west and Nigeria on the east,
including the peoples of Dahomey, Loango, and the Gold Coast.
One of the most surprising discoveries of the two Suriname eld trips
was the scope of the African inuences on the culture of the town blacks
in Paramaribo, who had long been in contact with Europeans and Amer-
ican Indians. Herskovits expected that the remaining African cultural
elements among the town blacks, beyond folk tales and proverbs, would
be minimal. Nonetheless, working with an informant in Paramaribo,
Frances Herskovits uncovered a number of African beliefs in spirits and
deities and numerous African practices.
Often, the African inuence

was combined with other cultural inuences. One example of this multi-
cultural inuence was that the townspeople adopted Dutch-style head
wraps but employed the African practice of naming the dierent designs
by using a proverb to commemorate noteworthy happenings in the
colony.
In Frances Herskovitss work with urban blacks, she found a

predominantly European material culture, with the greatest number of
African inuences in folklore and religious beliefs.

77
Although Herskovits found the Suriname Maroon culture to be es-
sentially African, he also discovered many cultural elements among the
Maroons that represented syncretisms of African, American Indian, and
European cultures. For example, he observed that the Maroons river-
boats were traditional American Indian dugouts, but the pointed blades
of the paddles and the carvings on the boats and the paddles were in an
African style.
After completing the two eld trips to Suriname, Herskovits pub-

lished a major interpretive essay in which he argued that African cultural
inuence extended throughout the Americas. Based on his ethnographic
research and the writings of others, Herskovits maintained that it was
possible to categorize the cultures of the Americas based on the degree of
African inuence. Focusing on folklore, linguistics, and religious prac-
tices, he listed the following African American peoples in order from
most to least African cultural inuence: Suriname Maroons, Negro
neighbors [of the Suriname Maroons] on the coastal plains of the Gui-
anas, Haitian peasants, Santo Domingo, other West Indian peoples,
such isolated groups living in the United States as the Negroes of the
Savannahs of southern Georgia, or those of the Gullah islands, vast
mass of Negroes of all degrees of racial mixture living in the South of the
United States, and, nally, Negroes with nothing of the African tradi-
tion left.
Evidently Herskovitss position on the African inuence on

northern blacks, which he had discussed in his 1925 New Negro article,
had not yet changed.
Herskovits also concluded that the slaves who xed the cultural tradi-
tions of the New World Negroes came from a much more restricted area
than is ordinarily thought to have been the case, . . . they came from the
Ivory Coast eastward to the Cameroons. He argued that as relatively
few Congo natives were enslaved in the Americas, they did not impress
many of their cultural or linguistic traditions upon the other Negroes
whose descendants are found there today. Herskovits noted that in
Brazil and Cuba, the Yoruba dominated; in the French Caribbean, the
Ewe dominated; in Jamaica, descendants of people of the Gold Coast
dominated; in the eastern United States and Trinidad and other British
islands, excluding Jamaica, the Yoruban and Gold Coast descendants
dominated. Furthermore, Herskovits contended that African cultural
survivals such as place and deity names, death and burial customs, and
78
family and clan structure in the Americas were much greater than had
been thought.
The Herskovitses published two books, Rebel Destiny: Among the Bush
Negroes of Dutch Guiana (1934) and Suriname Folklore (1936), that rein-
forced their thesis that African culture was alive and thriving among the
Suriname Negroes. In coauthoring Rebel Destiny, Melville and Frances
each wrote rst drafts of half the chapters and then rewrote the other set
of chapters.
Neither of these two books was a conventional ethnogra-

phy. Except for the preface that summarized the goals and conclusions of
the trip, Rebel Destiny was essentially a narrative, including extensive
dialogue, of the Herskovitses travels in Suriname. The book included
chapters on inuential individuals such as a headman and a craftsman.
Other chapters focused on womens work, religion, and family. In con-
trast, Suriname Folk-Lore was written for an academic audience and fo-
cused primarily on the folklore of Paramaribo Negroes and the coastal
blacks, with a section on the proverbs and songs of the Maroons. The
rst section focused on the culture of the Paramaribo blacks, and the
remainder of the book was a technical discussion of the stories, proverbs,
and music of the people.
Both books were praised for their ne scholarship that demonstrated

the dynamism and complexity of the African-inuenced culture of Suri-
name. Reviews in newspapers, popular magazines, and scholarly jour-
nals congratulated the authors for presenting convincing evidence of
the strong African inuence on the Saramacca Maroons and the lesser,
though still signicant, African inuence on the town Negroes of Para-
maribo. The Herskovitses were lauded for their objectivity, with one
reviewer contrasting the Herskovitses sympathetic view of the people
with the biased and degrading views usually presented in accounts of
non-Western peoples. In fact, none of the reviewers disputed the Hers-
kovitses thesis that the African cultural inuence in the Americas was
strong.
Following the two eld trips to Suriname, Herskovits saw the next step
in his study of African diasporic culture as a eld trip to West Africa. To
advance his analysis of the Africanness of black American cultures, Hers-
kovits needed to see West African culture rsthand. Herskovits chose
Dahomey (now Benin) because very little eldwork had been done there
compared to other parts of West Africa, including Nigeria, the Gold
Coast (now Ghana), and Togoland.
In addition, the Suriname eld

79
trips had yielded many cultural correspondences with Dahomey, includ-
ing the use of Dahomean god names by the Saramacca Maroons. Indeed,
the Maroons called their sacred city Dahomey.
In addition to Daho-
mey, Herskovits wanted to go to Nigeria and the Gold Coast, as the
evidence from Suriname also indicated important cultural inuences
from these two areas.
With the helpful intervention of Boas and the

generosity of Elsie Clews Parsons, arrangements were nalized for fund-
ing of the trip to Dahomey, with $3,500 coming from Parsons and a
similar amount from the Columbia University Social Science Research
Council.
Du Bois helped facilitate the trip by providing Herskovits

letters of introduction to two Senegalese deputies to the French parlia-
ment, the president of Liberia, and a Gold Coast lawyer.
The Herskovitses spent about six months in West Africa, from Febru-
ary to August 1931, including three and a half months in Dahomey, one
month in Nigeria, and one month in the Gold Coast.
Upon arrival in
West Africa, the anthropologists quickly noticed numerous cultural cor-
respondences with Suriname. In Nigeria the marks on peoples legs and
shoulders were similar to the Konmanti-cuttee of the Suriname Ma-
roons. The Suriname Maroon dugout and the Nigerian dugout were
very similar, suggesting that the former was of Nigerian provenance. The
Herskovitses also noticed similarities in language between the taki-taki
of the Suriname Maroons and the Negro-English of their Nigerian
guide.
On the drive into Abomey, Dahomey, they saw shrines that

looked exactly like those we know from Suriname.
In addition, in
Abomey Herskovits saw two women wearing silver shields similar to
shields shown on the pictures of ocial meetings of Bush Negro [Suri-
name Maroon] chiefs.
In Dahomey, when Herskovits drummed (on

his sun helmet) the rhythm to the sky god that he had learned in Suri-
name, one of the chiefs immediately recognized this rhythm as that for
the Dahomey sky god.
In 1938 Herskovits published Dahomey: An Ancient West African King-

dom, a two-volume study that established the complexity and strength of
Dahomean culture.
Herskovits detailed Dahomean history and cul-

ture, providing extensive coverage of Dahomean economic life, social
organization, rituals, politics, religious life, and art. Herskovits main-
tained that African culture and institutions were indigenous products
that were little aected by outsiders, Europeans or Arabs. According to
Herskovits, Life in Dahomey goes on today little dierent from the way
80
it was lived before contact with Europeans.
In this way, Herskovits

challenged those who, believing in the inferiority of Africans, argued
that complex aspects of African culture must be the result of external
inuences.
Herskovits also weighed in on the raging debate over the question of
whether African art, then in vogue, was really African or the result of the
inuence of the superior Europeans or Arabs. During the late 1920s
Herskovits had published articles in popular magazines and scholarly
journals that emphasized the African origins of African art.
In 1934
Melville and Frances published articles on the art of brass casting, ap-
pliqu cloth, and wood carving in Dahomey. With the numerous Da-
homean carvings, woodcuts, and appliqu cloth that the Herskovitses
brought back from their eld trip, they now had extensive material evi-
dence to reinforce their interpretive position.
Nonetheless, in Herskovitss desire to underscore the indigenous na-

ture of Dahomean culture, he presented a static view that omitted certain
key factors inuencing that culture. By emphasizing the similarity be-
tween Dahomean culture before European contact and during the con-
temporary period, Herskovits underestimated the inuence of change
over time, both from internal and external forces.
Like many con-

temporary anthropologists, Herskovits also excluded any systematic dis-
cussion of the inuence of power relations and imperialism on the cul-
tures of colonized peoples.
In the sections on politics, for instance,

Herskovits devoted little space to the inuence of the French colonial
government.
At any rate, reviewers generally praised the book on Dahomey.
They congratulated Herskovits for presenting a comprehensive view of a

complex culture. Several reviewers noted that the study did well to ana-
lyze the culture on its own terms and not by comparing it to Western
cultures.
One reviewer maintained that this study should do much to

dispel any lingering ideas about the intrinsic inferiority of the Negro.
Similarly, Alain Locke complimented Herskovits on his objective ren-

dering of the culture of Dahomey as a valuable corrective to previous
accounts that interpreted African cultures as inferior or savage.
De-
spite some positive comments, Carter Woodson asserted that only a
native Dahomean could construct a denitive picture of Dahomean cul-
ture. According to Woodson, Herskovits, or any other foreign anthro-
81
pologist who spent a limited time traveling in a country, could only
present an incomplete picture.
Having completed eldwork in Suriname and Dahomey, Herskovits

decided that the next step in his study of African diasporic cultures was
to head back to the Americas. Based on his eldwork in Dahomey and
his reading of the literature on Haiti, Herskovits suspected that there
were close cultural ties between Dahomey and Haiti. In addition, he
believed that, except for Suriname, Haiti was the most African culture
in the Americas. Elsie Clews Parsons reinforced Herskovitss desire to
study Haiti, telling him that in the other Caribbean islands, there were
signicantly less African cultural elements.
On Boass advice, Hersko-

vits contributed $1,300 to the Columbia University research fund, which
was matched by $1,300 from the Rockefeller Foundation, to nance the
eld trip to Haiti. Herskovits also relied on the American Council of
Learned Societies and the National Research Council to nance the
recording of music and the taking of motion pictures.
This eld trip to

Haiti and his subsequent eld trip to Trinidad made Herskovits the rst
American anthropologist to do extensive eldwork in the Caribbean.
Herskovitss twelve-week trip to Haiti during the summer of 1934, the

most arduous of his eld trips due to the tropical climate, proved suc-
cessful in establishing the importance of African cultural inuences in
Haiti. Taking the advice of Haitian historian and politician Jean Price-
Mars, the Herskovitses stayed in the village of Mirebalais, the site of an
unsuccessful 191820 rebellion against the occupation force of the U.S.
Marines, who had invaded Haiti in 1915 and were withdrawn in 1934.
Despite the extended presence of American Marines, Herskovits missed

their impact on the culture of the Haitian people. In fact, American
ocials banned the religious practices of Vodun, raided houses of wor-
ship, and seized ceremonial objects. Nonetheless, Herskovits found the
people friendly toward Americans, an attitude that beneted his work.
In Life in a Haitian Valley, Herskovitss analysis of cultural change

emerged fully formed. More than in his previous work, the anthropolo-
gist employed both historical and ethnographic evidence to determine
the relative cultural inuences of Europeans and Africans in the Ameri-
cas. Herskovits called Haitian culture an amalgam of various cultural
inuences.
Herskovitss book also challenged previous works by white journalists

and travelers that distorted and sensationalized Haitian culture in order
82
to present a picture of exoticism. These authors viewed Haitian culture
as primitive, in an earlier stage of development compared to that of the
West. For example, The Magic Island, a best-seller published in 1929 by
journalist William Seabrook, simultaneously praised voodoo while
characterizing it as savagery and superstitious mumbo-jumbo.
As
historian Mary Renda has observed, Seabrooks lurid and titillating tale
of a land where soulless beings recognized neither father nor wife nor
mother promoted the belief in a benevolent U.S. military paternalism in
Haiti.
Herskovits criticized this type of writing. In 1935, in his book

review entitled Voodoo Nonsense, he attacked another travelers non-
sensical account of Haiti for its distortions, exaggerations, and unmiti-
gated falsications. Herskovits called for a dispassionate work on Hai-
tian culture, which he published two years later.
In the rst part of his book, Herskovits employed contemporary writ-

ings and historical works to trace the cultural history of Haiti. He was
fascinated by the integration of French and African cultures in Haiti.
Based on his historical research, Herskovits found a tension between

French cultural inuences, such as Catholicism, and African religious
practices, notably Vodun, which included the practice of magic. In other
cases, new institutions were created as accommodations between African
and European traditions. For example, the institution of plaage recon-
ciled African plural marriage and European monogamy. Thus in Haiti
one might marry according to the Catholic Church but also marry an-
other person outside of the Church, according to folk tradition.
In the second and third parts of the book, Herskovits analyzed Hai-
tian culture based on his eldwork. As in his study of Dahomey, Hersko-
vits focused on religion, work, and the stages of individual and family
life. In the nal part, called Haiti, a Cultural Mosaic, Herskovits con-
cluded that Haiti represented a fascinating example of the ways in which
people combine various cultural inuences to create their own way of
life. Haitians built houses with West Africantype hatching and wall
construction, while decorating their homes with European-style furni-
ture.
In farming, the Haitians employed mostly European tools, such

as a European long-handled hoe, while they planted seeds exactly like the
Dahomeans. Each made the same holes for the seeds with their feet,
while passing seeds with the right hand from a calabash of seeds held
under the left arm.
Perhaps the most intriguing cultural combina-

tion in Haiti was the integration of Catholicism and African-inuenced
83
Vodun in the spiritual lives of the people. Despite ocial Church an-
tagonism toward Vodun practices, the people continued to practice
Vodun rites such as animal sacrice, possession rituals, and worship of
Vodun deities. Meanwhile, Vodun practitioners integrated their beliefs
with Church rituals. Many Haitians believed that when a Catholic priest
preached, he was possessed just as practitioners of Vodun were possessed
by deities during their rituals.
In fact, Herskovits argued that the

willingness of Vodun practitioners to accommodate their beliefs and
rituals to Catholicism represented an African survival: In Africa the
conquest of one people by another meant the mutual interchange and
acceptance of the respective deities.
Herskovits suggested that tension between the European and African

cultural elements in Haiti caused the often remarked upon social, eco-
nomic, and political instability.
He observed that Haitians at times

simultaneously esteemed and disdained institutions, individuals, and ob-
jects. Herskovits called this process socialized ambivalence, in which,
for instance, a Haitian undergoes unwilling possession by the gods of
his ancestors and then suers profound remorse due to his or her strict
Catholic upbringing.
Herskovitss description of the socialized am-

bivalence of Haitians is reminiscent of Du Boiss 1903 description of
the divided consciousness of African Americans: One ever feels his two-
ness,an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unrec-
onciled strivings, two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged
strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder.
Yet Herskovitss deployment of a psychological explanation for Haitis

social, economic, and political instability minimized the impact of for-
eign domination, internal social conict, and political corruption. By the
time of Herskovitss research, Haiti had a long history of conict be-
tween blacks and mulattoes and between urban elites and rural peasants.
Furthermore, various European nations and, more recently, the United
States had sought and often achieved economic and/or political domi-
nation over Haiti.
In a nal chapter, Herskovits reproved black nationalists and white

supremacists who, for political reasons, would distort the signicance of
his ndings regarding African survivals and syncretic cultures. Black na-
tionalists might assert that dierences between black and white cultures
justied a separate black nation, while white segregationists might em-
ploy these dierences to justify their position. These views, according to
84
Herskovits, misinterpreted the nature of his ndings. That black Ameri-
cans had retained some African cultural elements did not negate the
fact that they had also assimilated into American culture in propor-
tion with the opportunities aorded them. Furthermore, the syncretic
nature of African American cultures did not set them apart from other
cultures. Rather, all cultures were formed by diverse inuences. There-
fore, Herskovits insisted, African Americans were no dierent from Ger-
man Americans or Italian Americans.
In this way Herskovits sought

to restrain both black nationalists and white supremacists from misusing
his conclusions about black culture.
Life in a Haitian Valley received generally good reviews, although
some critics argued that Herskovits had overstated the degree of African
cultural inuence in Haiti.
The anthropologist Ruth Benedict called

the book the best one yet published on Haiti. She applauded Hersko-
vitss authoritative analysis of varying African and European inuences
and Haitian instability.
In contrast, University of Chicago anthropol-

ogist Robert Redeld, while lauding the book as an exemplary work on
acculturation, asserted that Herskovits exaggerated the African inu-
ences and minimized the European inuences. Redeld found Hersko-
vitss use of the phrase socialized ambivalence unconvincing as an ex-
planation for Haitian political and social instability.
George Herzog
argued that Herskovitss evidence demonstrated not socialized ambiva-
lence but eective and stable assimilation of both African and European
religious traditions in Haiti.
Guy B. Johnson, who had earlier written

that spirituals were European-inuenced musical forms, now altered his
views in the face of Herskovitss evidence, noting, I probably over-
emphasized the inuence of the white heritage. Nevertheless, Johnson
still disagreed with Herskovits about the extent of the African cultural
inuence.
In 1939 the Herskovitses, joined by their three-year-old daughter,

Jean, undertook a second eld trip to the West Indies. This time they
journeyed to Trinidad, spending three months in a small village called
Toco. This eld trip was nanced by a $3,250 grant from the Carnegie
Corporation.
The Herskovitses chose Trinidad because ten years ear-

lier they had heard of Shango worshipers who practiced rituals there that
were similar to those of the Yoruba of Nigeria.
In contrast to his ndings on previous eld trips, in Trinidad Hersko-

vits discovered an African American culture that evidenced more Euro-
85
pean inuences than African. European cultural inuences were domi-
nant in religion, politics, economics, and social structure. Nonetheless,
many African customs had been retained, with some operating beneath
the surface. To explain the development of Trinidadian culture, Hersko-
vits oered two new concepts: reinterpretation and cultural focus. Over
hundreds of years, Trinidadians had created a culture by reinterpreting
or adapting European and African traditions according to their needs at
the time.
Furthermore, Herskovits argued that the particular circum-

stances of the history of a people and the parts of a peoples culture that
are of paramount importance to themwhich Herskovits called cultural
focusdetermined which cultural elements had been retained in the
whole or reinterpreted. Under circumstances of culture contact, Hersko-
vits maintained that resistance [to cultural change] is greatest in the
focal area. By contrast, in a stable culture, innovations are most readily
accepted in the focal area.
Among the direct African inuences on Toco culture were African

foods and eating habits, such as meal times and the custom of the father
eating separately from the mother and children. Toco hunters and sher-
men used charms that focused on supernatural beings known as the
little people of the forest, similar to other little people found in the
traditions of West Africa and black cultures in Guiana and Brazil.
Herskovits found many examples of cultural practices in Toco that

showed the reinterpretation of both European and West African tradi-
tions. For example, Herskovits found that whenever a mother in Toco
was called away on an emergency and had to leave her child alone, she
placed an open Bible or prayer book at the childs side. This was a
reinterpretation of the West African belief that if an infant must be left
unattended, he or she must be given supernatural protection.
The syncretism of African and Christian cultural elements was re-

vealed in the religious practices of the Shouters, Trinidadian Baptists
who worshiped in an unrestrained manner that included shaking and
dancing when infused with the spirit.
Herskovits viewed the Shout-

ers organization as a reinterpretation of African cult organization, with
the leader of the Shouters functioning as the African cult-head, or priest.
The vision-experience of the Shouters was reminiscent of how West
Africans experienced their gods. The rhythms of the hymns the Shouters
sang, their hand-clapping and feet-tapping, and their body movements
were similar to the rituals of West Africa. The dierence between Toco
86
and West African rituals was that the Shouters envisioned Jesus Christ
rather than a West African deity.
Trinidad Village, published in 1947,

received generally good reviews, although some reviewers criticized the
study for omitting important aspects of the culture or overstating the
African inuence.
Several reviewers pointed out that Herskovits had

failed to properly analyze the impact of British imperial control on the
culture. One reviewer criticized the lack of analysis of the frustration the
Toco people felt about British control.
Trinidadian historian Eric

Williams criticized the Herskovitses for underplaying the cultural impact
of British-style public education, one of the main institutions for foisting
British culture on the Trinidadians. Williams also reproved the Hersko-
vitses for praising the British emphasis on literary training for white-
collar work and praising the British imposition of their own standards
on the Trinidadians.
In his rejoinder, Herskovits argued that Trinidad Village contained

only about two paragraphs on formal education, because formal edu-
cation is much less important in the life of the child than is the training
he receives outside the schools. Herskovits also maintained that, con-
trary to Williamss assertion, he did not advocate British-style education.
Herskovits denied Williamss assertion that the Herskovitses brief dis-
cussion of public education indicated that they supported the status
quo.
Author and former Herskovits assistant Zora Neale Hurston criti-

cized the Herskovitses for nding African survivals where they did not
exist. Hurston rejected their claim that the mourning ground of the
Shouters, a retreat area for initiation and other spiritual rituals, repre-
sented an African survival. Hurston maintained that the practice of re-
pairing to the praying ground . . . arose out of the conditions of slavery
and out of contact with the American Indian. According to Hurston,
this practice stemmed from the early denial by the slave owners of the
participation of Negroes in Christianity. So the slaves developed the
scheme of meeting at night at some glade deep in the forest and holding
services there.
Nonetheless, the Herskovitses account of the mourn-

ing ground did provide a number of examples of West African cultural
elements, including seclusion, massage after periods of stillness, and pro-
scription from handling money or knives after mourning practice.
The Herskovitses last major ethnographic eld trip was their Brazil
trip. Funded by a $10,000 grant from the Rockefeller Foundation, the
Herskovitses spent one year in Brazil from September 1941 to August
87
1942.
They undertook eldwork for six months in Bahia in northern

Brazil and one month in Porto Allegre in southern Brazil. Besides eld-
work, Herskovits also visited several educational institutions and gov-
ernment ocials for the purpose of assessing the state of the social sci-
ences in Brazil as part of a program of improving American-Brazilian
cooperation in social science research. This was part of a larger Rocke-
feller Foundation program designed to improve AmericanLatin Ameri-
can relations.
Despite suering a heart attack on this trip, Herskovits

completed his work and published a number of articles, although no
book, detailing the important African cultural inuence in Bahia and
other regions of Brazil.
In Bahia Herskovits found a people who had uniquely adjusted their

African ways to the demands of the modern city. Unlike in Haiti, Hers-
kovits detected no psychological tension among the Bahians due to the
mixing of African and European cultural elements. Herskovits learned of
many African survivals, including African foods, language, cooperative
work styles (though to a lesser degree than in other African American
cultures the Herskovitses had studied), and, despite religious and secular
prohibitions, plural marriage.
The religious cult groups were the most powerful example of an

African-like institution in Brazil.
The Brazilian Negroes had created

cult groups reminiscent of those in West Africa. In Bahia the cult group
was called Candombl. As in West Africa, these cults organized rituals
based on knowledge of African deities. A priest or priestess headed each
cult house. Initiation rituals included the cooking of ritual foods, making
oerings to a deity, and dancing in a state of possession, as in West
African rituals.
The Herskovitses discovered that, contrary to popular

belief, southern Brazil also contained important evidence of African cul-
tural survivals. In Porto Allegre they found a large Negro population,
whose ways of life include many elements of African custom which dier
only in aspects of detail from those of Bahia, the acknowledged center of
Africanisms in Brazil.
As in Bahia, the anthropologists found African-

like cult organizations and religious rituals, African deity names, and
possession dances.
In addition to pursuing his own acculturation studies, Herskovits sought

to promote acculturation research by other anthropologists and to make
it an essential part of anthropology. Toward that end, he sought to clear
88
up some of the prevalent confusion in discussions of culture contact and
to ensure that the new approach to culture change was disseminated
throughout the scholarly community. Accordingly, in 1935 the Social
Science Research Council (ssrc) formed a subcommittee of the three
leading anthropologists in acculturation studies, Ralph Linton, Robert
Redeld, and Herskovits, to study the problem. Within a year they pub-
lished A Memorandum for the Study of Acculturation in four academic
journals: American Anthropologist, Man, Africa, and Oceania.
The sub-
committee dened acculturation as follows: Acculturation compre-
hends those phenomena which result when groups of individuals hav-
ing dierent cultures come into continuous rst-hand contact, with
subsequent changes in the original cultural patterns of either or both
groups.
By dening acculturation as two-way cultural inuence, the

anthropologists undercut previous assumptions about cultural contact
that stressed Western superiority. Furthermore, the subcommittee dif-
ferentiated acculturation from other types of culture contact. Culture
change included acculturation and other cultural dynamics, while assimi-
lation was sometimes a phase of acculturation, and diusion was an
aspect of the process of acculturation.
One observer has noted, This

1936 denition became the point of departure for all subsequent discus-
sions of the term.
As a result of his acculturation studies and his participation on the

ssrc subcommittee, Herskovits became an outspoken advocate for the
central importance of acculturation studies in anthropology. In 1936 he
advised South African anthropologist Isaac Schapera to prepare an arti-
cle on the acculturation of the Bakxatla of South Africa for the accultura-
tion committee and submit it for publication to the American Anthropolo-
gist. Leslie Spier, editor of the American Anthropologist, however, rejected
Schaperas Acculturation among the Bakxatla of South Africa, based on
his view that acculturation studies were outside the purview of anthro-
pologists. According to Spier, anthropologists studied aboriginal cul-
tures, while questions of the integration of aboriginal cultures with our
own had best be left to the sociologists.
In March 1936 Herskovits

wrote a blistering letter to Spier, attacking him for his decision. He told
Spier that he was o base in rejecting acculturation studies, noting that
many prominent American anthropologistsincluding Boas, Edward
Sapir, Ruth Benedict, and Clark Wissleragreed with Herskovits that
acculturation studies were absolutely part of anthropology. Herskovits
89
rejected Spiers view that studies of culture contact between Europeans
and nonliterate cultures belonged to sociology. In fact, Herskovits ar-
gued, sociologists generally eschewed acculturation studies. Moreover,
he maintained that anthropology and sociology diered in techniques
as well as data. Sociologists studied the social organisation of our own
civilization. Certainly, the dierence between anthropology and sociol-
ogy is more than the dierence between a loin cloth and a pair of trou-
sers. To protest Spiers decision, Herskovits resigned his position as
associate editor of the American Anthropologist. Furthermore, Herskovits
promised to bring up the issue at the next annual meeting of the Ameri-
can Anthropological Association [aaa].
Spier and aaa secretary John M. Cooper convinced Herskovits to

withdraw his resignation pending the associations annual meeting in
December. At that meeting Herskovits delivered a paper entitled The
Signicance of the Study of Acculturation for Anthropology, which ar-
gued that acculturation studies were central to anthropological study.
Herskovits maintained that acculturation studies were absolutely essen-

tial to illuminate the dynamics of culture change. Acculturation studies
permitted anthropologists to examine the results of culture contact un-
der conditions where the historical interaction between various cultural
groups was known. Therefore anthropologists could combine ethnogra-
phy and historical research to examine culture change over time. More-
over, if anthropologists concentrated exclusively on isolated societies,
they would delimit the discipline to a small portion of the worlds cul-
tures.
Following Herskovitss statement, Spier asked the members to

decide whether acculturation studies should be included in the journal.
A motion was made and seconded that acculturation studies should be
included. That settled the issue. (No vote was held.) Immediately, the
American Anthropologist, under Spiers editorship, began to include ac-
culturation articles, including two by Herskovits; one was the paper he
had read at the annual meeting.
Thus Spier acquiesced to the view of

Herskovits and other anthropologists who took a broader approach to
cultural anthropology than he did.
The ssrc subcommittees plan to publish an extensive report on accul-
turation, however, was derailed by a dispute between Herskovits and
ssrc executive director Robert Crane.
Herskovits and Crane had very

dierent ideas about what form the acculturation report should take.
Herskovits wanted to publish a full-length book based on his own re-
90
search and the discussions of the ssrc subcommittee. Crane argued that
Herskovitss manuscript did not t the purpose of the Council in under-
taking these nuclear enterprises and is therefore not suitable for publica-
tion by the Council, which is not in the publishing business but issues
only materials calculated to forward its own plans. Crane admitted that it
was possible that he had never conveyed clearly the councils purpose to
Herskovits.
Meanwhile, Herskovits believed that Crane had deliber-

ately ignored the acculturation project and thus caused the completion of
the project to be severely delayed.
In November 1937 Herskovits com-

plained to Donald Young of the ssrc that Crane was too busy during
the past three years to nd any time at all for anything having to do with
acculturation or the work of the Committee. Cranes failure to give any
feedback to Herskovits on the memorandum delayed progress on the
project. Moreover, Herskovits recoiled at Cranes plan to rewrite the
memorandum that Herskovits had slaved over the previous summer.
Therefore, because he was now . . . too busy at my work, Herskovits
wanted to withdraw from the project entirely and return the ssrcs funds
unless his memorandum was sent to the printers within a month.
After
Young showed Herskovitss letter to Crane, the executive director wrote
Herskovits, It would be dicult to devise another document as well
calculated to alienate your best friend. Crane concluded, If you are
incapable of looking at this matter objectively, but must put it on per-
sonal grounds, I should say that it is I who have been obdurate in this
matter. Young has exhausted every wile to induce me to publish the
manuscript, and [Robert] Redeld was quite ready when I objected.
As a result of the Crane-Herskovits dispute, the ssrcs subcommittee on

acculturation was terminated.
Following the dispute with Crane, Herskovits published Accultura-

tion: The Study of Culture Contact (1938) under his own name. Although
the book was partly funded by the ssrc, Herskovits took sole respon-
sibility for the conclusions.
In Acculturation, Herskovits clearly distin-

guished between various types of culture contact. He dened diusion as
the transfer of cultural traits from one group to another. Assimilation
meant a synthesis of culture after culture contact between two or more
groups. Herskovits dened acculturation as a process in which mutual
cultural inuence resulted from extended contact between two cultural
groups.
Herskovits also distinguished the methods employed by anthropolo-

91
gists in studies of diusion and acculturation. Diusion studies generally
assumed historical culture contact between two peoples, based on the
discovery of similar cultural traits. Ethnocentric assumptions often led to
the supposition that culture was being diused in one direction, from
the West to a nonliterate culture. By contrast, acculturation studies em-
ployed historical reconstructions rather than distributional analyses of
cultural traits.
By emphasizing the process of acculturation in his re-

search and not assimilation or diusion, Herskovits underscored the
strength and complexity of diverse cultures, whether literate or non-
literate, Western or non-Western. His research in African and African
American cultures had demonstrated the endurance and inuence of
nonliterate cultures. This view was evidence of his shift from assimila-
tionism, which implied a cultural chauvinist perspective, to cultural plu-
ralism, based on a relativist perspective.
In his study of acculturation, Herskovits also cautioned anthropolo-
gists against their own ethnocentrism, which had made the view that
European cultures would overwhelm native cultures due to their supe-
riority the dominant one. Therefore he argued that studies of culture
contact should rst be undertaken where Europe or America was not
involved to guard against the bias of Western anthropologists who
viewed their cultures as superior and bound to overtake inferior native
cultures.
In 1941 Herskovits expressed his gratication that his book on ac-

culturation had stimulated so much excellent research. He observed that
every project that I suggested, as well as many more, are either being
worked at or have been done. In addition, he believed that his work had
sharpened the concept of the importance of studying cultural process
here and now and the use of historic as well as ethnographic materials to
a degree that I should not have thought possible.
Over the next two

decades, acculturation studies became a key component of anthropol-
ogy, with studies of culture change pursued among countless cultures,
including those in Mexico, the Philippines, India, China, Japan, North
America, Polynesia, and Africa.
Moreover, Herskovitss denition of

acculturation became an accepted one. In 1964 the Dictionary of the Social
Sciences dened acculturation as that process of cultural change (q.v.) in
which more or less continuous contact between two or more culturally
distinct groups results in one group taking over elements of the culture
of the other group or groups.
The denition also noted that ac-

92
culturation makes one groups culture the point of reference, and fo-
cuses upon the events and processes by which that group responds to
more or less continuous contact by variously accepting, reformulating,
or rejecting elements of the other culture or cultures.
Assimilation
became dened as the way in which the minority becomes incorporated
into the system of social relations which constitute the greater society.
This dierentiated assimilation from acculturation, which referred to
cultural change and not social incorporation.
Outside of anthropol-
ogy, however, acculturation had additional meanings that approximated
some of the earlier denitions that were similar to assimilation. For
instance, acculturation sometimes meant the transmission of culture
from generation to generation; . . . the adaptation of an out-group mem-
ber to the behaviour pattern of an in-group; and . . . the impact of a
central authority or an urban community upon isolated rural groups.
From 1928 to 1942 Herskovitss eld trips to Suriname, Dahomey,

Haiti, Trinidad, and Brazil transformed his views on the dynamics of cul-
tural interaction and cultural change. These eld trips convinced Hers-
kovits of the error of his early assimilationist views. He now embraced
the notion of strong and resilient African and African American cul-
tures. In doing so, Herskovits moved from a universalist emphasis on
one-sided assimilation to a particularist emphasis on diversity. While
underscoring the African inuence in his eldwork, Herskovits also es-
tablished the diversity of African and African American cultures. The cul-
tures of Suriname, Dahomey, Haiti, Trinidad, and Brazil were dierent
due to their unique histories and inuences. These studies led Hersko-
vits to develop a theory of acculturation that embraced a dynamic view of
cultural change and rejected cultural denitions based on ethnocentric
biases. As he completed new eld studies and collected additional evi-
dence to support his theories of African cultural inuence in the Ameri-
cas, criticism began to mount. Moreover, criticism multiplied when
Herskovits began to emphasize his belief that African culture inuenced
black culture in the United States. When he published The Myth of the
Negro Past in 1941, as part of the Carnegie Corporations Study of the
Negro in America, the criticism from liberal assimilationist scholars rose
to monumental proportions.
93
chapter four
Subverting the Myth of
the Negro Past
The myth of the Negro past is one of the principal supports of race prejudice
in this country.Melville J. Herskovits
A race of people is like an individual man; until it uses its own talent, takes
pride in its own history, expresses its own culture, arms its own selfhood, it
can never fulll itself.Malcolm X
H
erskovits s fifteen years of research on black cultures
culminated with The Myth of the Negro Past, the rst publica-
tion of the Carnegie Corporations Study of the American
Negro. The Carnegie studythe most extensive study of African Ameri-
cans during this eraand the Herskovits work that emerged from that
study set the terms of debate between two very dierent ways of thinking
about race and society. In proclaiming the complexity, dynamism, and
enduring African inuence on African Americans, Herskovits challenged
those who maligned black culture and African culture. By contrast, the
Carnegie studywhile making the case for the assimilation of African
Americans into mainstream American societyembraced the view of
many prominent liberal black and white scholars who rejected Hersko-
vitss conclusion that the lifestyle of African Americans was strongly
inuenced by Africa. Indeed, these scholars, including E. Franklin Fra-
zier and Guy B. Johnson, argued that there was no such thing as black
culture. They rejected Herskovitss argument that evidence of the com-
plexity and strength of ancestral African societies would help undermine
race prejudice against African Americans. Instead, they maintained that
by providing evidence of dierences between the lifestyles of blacks and
whites, Herskovits furnished support for those who justied racial segre-
Subverting the Myth of the Negro Past
94
gation based on the view that blacks were incapable of assimilating into
mainstream American society.
In contrast, Herskovits insisted that black assimilation into American
culture and preservation of the African heritage were not mutually exclu-
sive. Nor was cultural change a one-way street. Just as blacks had been
inuenced by white American culture, so had black culture, with its
African-inuenced cultural traits, contributed to white American cul-
ture. Herskovits maintained that African Americans were just like other
folk in their ability to assimilate what is new to them and to give of
their aboriginal endowments to those with whom they have come into
contact.
The Carnegie Corporation study evolved from a suggestion in 1935 by

Newton Baker, a Carnegie Corporation trustee and the former secretary
of war under Woodrow Wilson, that the Executive Committee of the
Carnegie Corporation consider a study of the general question of negro
education and negro problems, with special reference to conditions in
the Northern states.
Under the leadership of former Columbia College

dean and ex-assistant secretary of war Frederick P. Keppel, from 1923 to
1942 the Carnegie Corporationformed in 1911 by steel magnate An-
drew Carnegiefocused its energies on nding ways to disseminate
traditionally elite culture to a large number of people. Toward that end,
the corporation funded libraries, education, and the arts. Bakers recom-
mendation was driven by his concern about the Great Depressions dele-
terious impact on the already dire economic conditions experienced by
many African Americans. Fearing that blacks feelings of desperation
would ignite race riots, Bakerwho opposed the federal intervention of
the New Dealbelieved that localities and philanthropies should take
action. Baker and Keppel supported the study because they believed that
by advancing Negro education, the Carnegie Corporation, which had
previously attached little signicance to black issues, could help alleviate
the poor economic and social conditions experienced by most African
Americans.
Meanwhile, Herskovits had submitted a funding request to the Car-

negie Corporation for extensive study of blacks in Africa and the Amer-
icas.
This request, combined with Herskovitss reputation with founda-

tion ocials as a key scholar of Negro studies, brought Herskovits to the
95
attention of the Carnegie Corporation as one who should be consulted
about Bakers proposal.
Consequently, in December 1936 Keppel contacted Herskovits to dis-
cuss the projected study of the Negro Problem. Keppel maintained
that present research on Negroes was insucient and should be shifted
toward solving the practical problems of race relations. He wanted to
employ a foreigner to direct the study, to ensure an objective view by a
detached observer without the preconceptions of someone already en-
gaged in the issue.
When Keppel asked Herskovits whether he would be

interested in directing the research part of the study and working with a
European director, Herskovits expressed interest, with the proviso that
he would not work with a European director who came from an impe-
rialist country.
Herskovits argued that association with imperialism

would damage a directors credibility as an objective observer. Hersko-
vits and sociologist Donald Young later urged Keppel, without success,
to hire an American research director who was well versed in the social
sciences, particularly sociology and anthropology.
Herskovits also rec-

ommended black economist Abram Harris for the studys advisory com-
mittee, emphasizing that foundations should stop relegating blacks to
insignicant roles with no power.
Before the decision to hire a foreign director was made, Herskovits

was briey considered. He received mixed reviews from various aca-
demics and foundation ocials. Columbia University psychologist Ed-
ward L. Thorndike recommended Herskovits, and Alfred Kidder of the
National Research Council also endorsed him. Robert Crane, president
of the Social Science Research Councilwho was in the midst of the
dispute with Herskovits about the acculturation reportmaintained
that Herskovits was very able but not always tactful.
Geologist John
Merriam, president of the Carnegie Institute of Washington, doubted
the validity of Herskovitss research on Africanisms.
Ultimately, Keppel decided to hire a foreign director. He believed that

all of the American reformers and scholars interested in the race ques-
tion were inuenced by emotional factors of one type or another, and
many are also under the inuence of earlier environmental conditions,
family or community traditions of the abolitionist movement on the one
hand or of the old regime of the South on the other.
Apparently,
Herskovitss advice inuenced Keppel to reject candidates from imperi-
alist countries. When he oered the position to Swedish economist Karl
96
Gunnar Myrdal in August 1937, Keppel explained, We have thought . . .
that it would be well to seek a man in a non-imperial country with no
background of domination of one race over another.
Herskovits and Young saw the Carnegie study as a unique oppor-

tunity to steer the Carnegie Corporation toward their intellectual per-
spectives, which generally coincided. They hoped the project would pro-
vide them the opportunity to conduct extensive sociological and cultural
studies of African Americans. Toward that end, Herskovits and Young
crafted a long letter to Keppel in January 1937, giving detailed recom-
mendations for the proposed study.
Hoping to convince Keppel to

structure a more extensive and intensive study than originally planned,
Herskovits and Young advised Keppel that substantial documentary and
eld research into black history, culture, physical anthropology, and psy-
chology was required before solutions could be considered. This re-
search would help explain the dierences between blacks and whites in
housing, income, education, crime, and family desertion.
To further
understand black culture, additional research into African and early
American inuences and comparative studies of blacks in other New
World societies were needed.
The two scholars also urged study of

[t]he physical condition of the American Negro. They planned exten-
sive anthropometric measurements and study of health records and color
dierences among African Americans, because these were important
factor[s] in their social adjustment, both with other Negroes and with
white people. They argued that studying Negro cultural dierences as
a factor in social adjustment . . . is the part of the proposed project most
promising of a unique contribution both to the understanding and to
the practical improvement of race relations.
After agreeing to direct the study in October 1937, Myrdal told Kep-
pel that he believed it was unlikely that this study could solve the
Negro-Problem in America. Myrdal declared that the chief interest of
the Study must . . . be the investigation of the facts.
Myrdal was
ocially appointed to head the Carnegie study in 1938 and arrived in the
United States that fall.
The Carnegie Corporation approved initial

funding of $25,000 for the study in January 1938. Although the Carnegie
Corporation did not set a total budget for the two-to-three-year study,
the foundation hoped that following Myrdals preliminary investiga-
tions, the budget could be kept under $75,000.
Ultimately, the project

cost $250,000.

97
From the outset, Herskovitss relationship with Myrdal was strained
by their dierent approaches to the study. Based on his belief that blacks
could not be understood in isolation from the larger American scene,
Myrdal sought a holistic approach to the Negro problem. Therefore
the study would seek to understand whites and blacks, American culture
and black institutions, in order to reach conclusions about the nature of
the problem.
Myrdal decided that due to time restrictions, the scope of

the study should be conned to blacks in America and not expanded to
include blacks in other countries or other minorities in America. In
addition, Myrdal favored limited discussion of historical background,
and then only when it was absolutely necessary to explain the actual sit-
uation.
These decisions deviated from Herskovitss view that knowl-

edge of the African heritage and the American historical inuence was
necessary for a thorough understanding of black culture.
In the early stages of the study, Myrdal appeared somewhat conicted
regarding how much space to devote to the question of the African cul-
tural inuence. In an extensive memo to Keppel, Myrdal maintained that
if, as he already believed based on preliminary observations, the cultural
heritage from Africa should be insignicant . . . this problem . . . could be
disposed of in this Study by a short documented summary. Similarly,
although he included a community study or two on Negro culture,
Myrdal omitted a study of the African heritage of black Americans from
his list of twenty-three special study projects.
Nonetheless, Myrdal
asserted that the cultural heritage from Africa and the remains of that
heritage in the modern American Negro . . . should occupy a prominent
position in this study. . . . The historical summary in this instance should
be directed mainly into the eld of cultural anthropology.
During the planning stages of the study, Herskovitss attempts to con-

vince Myrdal to include more extensive research on black culture met
with little success. In a February 1939 meeting, Herskovits, who viewed
the study as an opportunity to continue and extend many of his own lines
of research, argued that Myrdals plans improperly omitted research on
the sociological implications of race crossing mainly concerning the
ideas and conceptions on miscegenation. Herskovits advised Myrdal
that certain related phenomena, such as Negroes passing for whites . . .
[and] the myths of the Negroes particular sexual abilities, should
be studied. Herskovits also proposed research into the black cultural
inuenceparticularly in music, religion, and languageon American
98
culture.
He wanted to conduct extensive cultural studies of black Amer-

ican communities. Concerned about time and nancial constraints and
unimpressed by Herskovitss suggestions, Myrdal rejected Herskovitss
proposal for extensive eldwork. In addition, Myrdal expressed irritation
with what he viewed as Herskovitss overemphasis on the African heri-
tage.
Indeed, Myrdal told Charles Dollard of the Carnegie Corporation

that he believed Herskovits was excessively biased on the question of
African survivals.
In June 1939, despite their dierences, Myrdal and Herskovits agreed

that Herskovits would write an extended treatment on his theories and
hypotheses concerning the African inuence on Negro culture in Amer-
ica and a shorter statement of the inuence on the bi-racial culture
situation in America and the present interest in African art and culture
and Negro achievements in art, science and athletics.
Despite this
agreement, Myrdal and Herskovits argued about the question of addi-
tional eldwork. Herskovits insisted that in order to write about black
culture in the Americas, he would have to undertake extensive eldwork
in southern black communities.
Nevertheless, Myrdal, while admitting

that such eldwork would be helpful, refused to approve any eldwork
due to time constraints on the study. Instead, Myrdal suggested that
Herskovits write a preliminary research memorandum detailing his anal-
ysis of black culture based on the present state of the literature.
Hersko-
vits nally agreed, with the understanding that due to the time con-
straints and lack of additional eldwork, his memorandum could not be
denitive; in his view, a denitive study of American black culture was
at least ten years away.
Thus Herskovitss persistence helped persuade

Myrdal to authorize a more extensive study of the African heritage than
he had previously supported. But Myrdals reasons for doing so were
based more on expedience than conviction. Indeed, the University of
North Carolina sociologist and deputy director of the Carnegie study,
Guy B. Johnson, later commented, It was much more important just to
feel that he [Myrdal] had got this man [Herskovits] to participate than
to get what he was actually going to contribute to the study.
Hence,
Myrdals acquiescence was due, at least in part, to Herskovitss promi-
nence in the eld of Negro studies. In order to mute Herskovitss criti-
cism of the study, it was necessary to include him in it.
Despite his authorization of Herskovitss memorandum, Myrdal had
already decided the question of black culture in his own mind. In early
99
1939 he wrote, It is obvious that the personality traits of Negroes show
exceptionally marked dierences from white American culture in rela-
tion to sexual norms and family patterns; although certainly these dier-
ences are smaller when the Negro group is split up into various social
classes and the comparisons made only with the corresponding classes of
white population. These cultural traits are apparently very much deter-
mined by traditions hanging over from slavery.
Later that year Myr-

dal asserted that the most important inuence on Negro culture in the
United States was the cultural isolation, forced upon the Negro rst by
slavery and thereafter by segregation and discrimination and generally
the peculiar economic, social, and educational status in which he has
been held. Myrdal did allow that African culture and, as a result of
immigration, other Negro cultures in the Americas would have had a
secondary inuence.
Furthermore, contrary to Herskovitss views, Myrdals rsthand ob-

servations convinced him that African American culture was essentially
the same as white American culture. For Myrdal, the main dierence
between black and white Americans was the greater presence of social
pathologies, such as broken families, crime, disease, poverty, and unem-
ployment among blacks, due to racial discrimination.
Several black intellectuals involved in the study, especially two How-

ard University scholarspolitical scientist Ralph Bunche and sociolo-
gist E. Franklin Frazierreinforced Myrdals perceptions of black cul-
ture. To understand why Bunche and Frazier supported the notion that
black culture and white culture were essentially the same, it is necessary
to review their part in the ongoing debate among black intellectuals
on the best strategy for black advancement. During the 1930s a new gen-
eration of black intellectualsled by Bunche, Frazier, and economist
Abram Harrisformulated a dierent analysis of race relations in Amer-
ica from that of the older black intellectuals, led by Du Bois and Wood-
son. The younger generation, inuenced by the catastrophic impact of
the Great Depression, employed a Marxist critique of American capital-
ism as exploitative of both white and black workers. In order to improve
the lot of African Americans, they argued for an interracial working-class
alliance based on a common class interest. These younger intellectuals
sought to minimize racial and cultural dierences between blacks and
whites in hopes of advancing toward their goal.
The radical views of the younger intellectuals stood in stark contrast

100
with those of the older generation, whose long experience with segrega-
tion and racial oppression convinced them to reject an interracial strat-
egy. In 1933, for example, Du Bois wrote, There seems no hope that
America in our day will yield in its color or race hatred any substantial
ground.
Therefore Du Bois argued that the race-conscious black man

cooperating together in his own institutions and movements would
eventually emancipate the colored race.
In a similar way, the post

World War I disgust of African Americans with heightened racial
op pression in the face of black patriotic support during the war had
contributed to the popularity of Marcus Garveys black nationalist move-
ment during the 1920s.
Like Garveyites ten years earlier, Woodson and

Du Bois saw little hope of an interracial class alliance. Instead, Woodson
sought to improve the self-respect of African Americans by publicizing
black accomplishments. For Woodson, this was the rst step toward
advancing the cause of African Americans.
During the late 1920s and

early 1930s Du Bois changed his strategy for improving the plight of
African Americans from an emphasis on attacking segregation and the
denial of political rights to support for separate economic development
for blacks. Toward that end, Du Bois proposed the establishment of con-
sumers and producers cooperatives.
Thus, while Du Bois and Wood-

son emphasized race accomplishments and race solidarity, Bunche, Fra-
zier, and Harris rejected black nationalism, stressed integration, and
diminished the focus on race.
Bunche particularly minimized black cultural distinctiveness. He be-
lieved that black distinctiveness was due entirely to skin color and the
resulting racial discrimination that caused social and economic inequal-
ity. Bunche argued that scholars who focused on black cultural or racial
distinctiveness emphasized racial dierences and reinforced those who
sought to perpetuate inequality. He believed that racial dierences were
only a small part of the reason for inequality. Instead, employing a Marx-
ist perspective, Bunche maintained that inequities arising from the capi-
talist economy were the main causes of racial and economic inequality.
Moreover, the best hope to end racial and economic inequality was the
formation of an interracial working-class movement. Toward that end,
Bunche helped form the National Negro Congress, which among other
civil rights initiatives supported racially integrated labor unions.
Although in his early studies Frazier emphasized the distinctiveness

of black folk culture, by the late 1930s he rejected the cultivation of
101
African-American traditions.
During the 1920s Frazier had argued

that southern black folk culture contained some traditions that African-
Americans might draw upon to strengthen their sense of solidarity and
collective struggle.
By 1934, however, Frazier concluded, the most

conspicuous thing about the Negro is his lack of a culture.
Although
in his major work, The Negro Family in the United States (1939), Frazier
provided a complex interpretation of black family development that ex-
plained that during the major historical transitions for African Ameri-
cansfrom slavery to emancipation, rural to urban migrationblack
families went through a normal process of disorganization and then
reorganization, much of his work stressed disorganization.
Reecting
a hierarchical notion of culture in opposition to the idea of cultural
relativism, Frazier argued that the Negro stripped of his relatively sim-
ple preliterate culture in which he was nurtured . . . has gradually taken
over the more sophisticated American culture.
Indeed, Frazier as-

serted that African American economic progress had been slowed by the
lack of a cultural identity. In order to uplift themselves, African Ameri-
cans needed to adopt white American culture and moral values, with the
long-range goal of assimilating into white culture. Although this formu-
lation rejected white biological superiority, it conrmed white cultural
superiority.
Throughout his career Frazier rejected the inuence of African culture
on American blacks. In 1934 he maintained that the Negro, owing to
the method by which he was captured in Africa and subsequently en-
slaved in America, was practically stripped of his cultural heritage. . . .
[I]t appears incontrovertible that no traces of the element of culture, the
social structure . . . can be found among American Negroes which can be
attributed to African origin. Instead, Frazier argued that the traditions
and culture of the American Negro have grown out of his experiences in
America and have derived their meaning and signicance from the same
source.
Fraziers denial of the existence of a separate black culture based in

part on the African heritage mirrored the view of his mentor, the white
sociologist of the University of Chicago, Robert Park. In 1934 Park
maintained that the Negro community is so completely interpenetrated
and dependent upon the dominant white community that it is dicult to
conceive it as having any independent existence.
He asserted that the

Negro, . . . [is] culturally . . . a purely native product, that is, with no
102
African inuence upon black American culture.
Moreover, Park argued

that the fact that the Negro brought with him from Africa so little
tradition which he was able to transmit and perpetuate on American soil
makes that race unique among all peoples of our cosmopolitan popula-
tion.
Thus Park argued that blacks uniquely lacked a cultural heri-

tage, perpetuating the notion that they were culturally inferior to other
groups who had come to the United States.
Alain Locke, who had championed the New Negro during the 1920s,
suggested a more complex view of black culture than Frazier or Bunche.
Lockes 1928 publication, The Negros Contribution to American Art
and Literature, took a midway position between Frazier and Hersko-
vits. Locke maintained that black folk culture in the South represented a
syncretism of African and Anglo-American cultures, with a signicant
African inuence but without specic African cultural survivals in evi-
dence. During the 1930s Locke, inuenced by the younger black intellec-
tuals Marxist analysis, sought to combine his cultural perspective with a
class analysis. Although he counseled the younger scholars not to ignore
the importance of culture, Locke sympathized with their Marxist views.
In fact, Lockes publishing company issued A World View of Race (1936),
in which Bunche oered a Marxist critique of race, arguing that racial
conict was caused by political and economic forces.
By the 1930s
Locke was not content with an unadorned emphasis on distinctive black
culture. He advised Myrdal that the widespread notion of Negro cul-
ture as separate and sui generis is very unscientic and contrary to fact.
Locke also reproved Herskovits for his dogmatic obsession with Afri-
can cultural survivals.
Other important black intellectuals rejected the Herskovits thesis. V. P.

Franklin has observed that Richard Wright, author of the acclaimed
novel Native Son, embraced the view of black culture as pathological. In
1940 Wright asserted that . . . What culture we did have when we were
torn from Africa was taken from us. . . . We possess no remembered
cushion of culture upon which we can lay our tired heads and dream of
our superiority. . . . In Native Son I tried to show that a man, bereft of a
culture and unanchored by property, can travel but one path if he reacts
positively but unthinkingly to the prizes and goals of civilization; and
that one path is emotionally blind rebellion.
Like the Howard University group, the white sociologist and deputy
director of the Carnegie study, Guy B. Johnson, also counseled Myrdal
103
to reject Herskovitss thesis. For over a decade Johnson had diered with
Herskovits on the question of African survivals. In his 1930 study of
the culture of blacks on St. Helena Island, South Carolina, Johnson
concluded that African traditions were nonexistent. Moreover, John-
son argued that the inhabitants Gullah dialect and their musicthe
spiritualswere derived from English antecedents. Sarah Thuesen has
observed that Johnson believed that an emphasis on dierences between
blacks and whites would retard the assimilation of blacks into American
society.
Herskovits called Johnsons book a pretty thin job and main-

tained that Johnsons analysis of the derivations of the Negro dialect
seems pretty weak to me since he apparently was totally unequipped
to even nd the numerous grammars and dictionaries of West African
languagelet alone make reference to them.
Herskovits believed that

Johnson had been so intent on the . . . hypothesis of European origin
that he had missed the African inuence on the folklore and music of the
islanders.
Johnson now argued that slavery was the key inuence on black cul-
ture and particularly on the present sexual customs and family structure
among Negroes. He advised Myrdal that African inuences, or the
possibility of such inuences, should at least be mentioned but should
not be overstated. Johnson also suggested that perhaps some peculiar
Negro ethos accounted for some of the deviations of Negro patterns
from the common American patterns.
His willingness to consider the

African cultural inuence is indicative of the impact that Herskovitss
work on Haiti had on Johnsons thinking.
By January 1940 Herskovits had prepared his Preliminary Memoran-
dum on the Problem of African Survivals, setting out the essence of his
argument and interpretation. He asserted that the debate on black cul-
ture was polarized by the extreme positions taken on the question of
African survivals. Taking a middle position, Herskovits proclaimed,
The most logical possibility, indeed, seems curiously enough to have re-
ceived the slightest attention. This is the possibility that much of present-
day Negro culture is . . . neither purely African nor purely European, but
represents, in varying degrees, a syncretism of the dual heritage of Eu-
rope and Africa.
Herskovits then refuted the presentist focus of most studies of the

Negro problem, arguing for a thoroughgoing historical attack on the
Negro problem. In the tangled skein of American Negro culture history,
104
the African threads are meaningless unless we arrive at a comprehension
of the mechanisms whereby such Africanisms as may be discovered were
perpetuated, and how they were rewoven with yarn from other sources.
Herskovits maintained that racial prejudice was caused by socioeco-
nomic and psychological factors. The socioeconomic factors have been
well studied and insofar as programs of action are concerned . . . can
thus be reasonably regarded as susceptible of eective attack through the
operation of short-time meliorative projects.
In contrast, Herskovits argued, the psychological [and historical]

basis of the race-problem, which was deeply entrenched and far more
insidious than the socioeconomic factors, had been largely ignored.
Herskovits believed that the psychological foundations of American race
relations were the keys to understanding the perpetuation of all shades
of superiority-inferiority rankings given whites and Negroes by mem-
bers of both groups. Therefore it was absolutely necessary that research-
ers intensely scrutinize the African heritage of New World Negroes.
Such work would undercut stereotypical views of African and African

American culture as inferior. The knowledge of strong African cultures
would improve blacks self-image and would help dispel whites racist
belief in black inferiority. Indeed, the Herskovitses had long believed
that illuminating African history and culture would help to undermine
African Americans feelings of inferiority about their ancestral heritage.
During their second Suriname trip in 1929, Frances Herskovits told her
husband that showing movies of Africa to Suriname villagers would do
wonders for the morale of these people for them to understand the great
African kingdoms to which they are related.
In his June 1940 memorandum, Herskovits summed up ve major

components of the myth of the Negro past that had been used to justify
black inferiority:
1)Negroes are naturally of a childlike character . . . ;
2)only the poorer stock of Africa was enslaved . . . ;
3)since Negroes were brought from all parts of the African conti-
nent . . . and, as a matter of policy, were distributed in the New World
so as to lose tribal identity, no least common denominator of under-
standing or behavior could have possibly been worked out by them;
4)the cultures of Africa were so savage . . . that the patent superiority of
European custom as observed in the behavior of their masters, would
105
have caused and actually did cause them to give up such aboriginal
traditions as they may have otherwise desired to preserve; from which
it follows,
5)That the Negro is a man without a past.
Herskovits contended that generations of so-called experts on Ne-

groes, with no knowledge of Africa, have reiterated, in whole or in
part . . . the assumptions outlined above. He indicted those, like
nineteenth-century slave owner, doctor, and ethnologist Josiah Clark
Nott, who perpetuated black stereotypes based on their belief in the
biological inferiority of Negroes. Similarly, Herskovits admonished
twentieth-century scholars, such as sociologists Jerome Dowd, E. Frank-
lin Frazier, Charles S. Johnson, Guy B. Johnson, Howard W. Odum,
Robert Park, E. B. Reuter, W. D. Weatherford, and T. J. Woofter Jr. and
historian U. B. Phillips, who devalued Negro culture and African culture.
Herskovits maintained that all have contributed to the perpetuation of
the legend concerning the quality and lack of tenaciousness of Negro
aboriginal endowment.
Meanwhile, Herskovits also cautioned against unquestioning accep-

tance of the positions of Du Bois and Woodson, who, like Herskovits,
championed the African heritage of American Negroes.
As early as
1897 Du Bois had rejected assimilationism. Moreover, in two of his
Atlanta University publications, The Negro Church (1903) and The
Negro American Family (1908), Du Bois related black religion and
family institutions to the African heritage.
In addition, in 1915 Du Bois

published The Negro, which synthesized recent scholarship on African
history and African American history, again emphasizing strong African
cultures and their inuence on black Americans.
Woodson was also a trailblazer in emphasizing African culture and its

impact in the Americas. Especially during the 1920s and 1930s, Woodson
promoted projects and wrote books that focused on Africa and its cul-
tural inuence on American blacks.
In 1936 Woodson published The

African Background Outlined or Handbook for the Study of the Negro, which
detailed African history and culture and its inuence on African Ameri-
can history and culture. Woodson included religious beliefs, language,
folktales, and secret societies as examples of African survivals among
American blacks.
Despite their concurrence on the question of African survivals, Hers-

106
kovits argued that the views of Woodson and Du Bois must be con-
sidered inadmissible because they were based on opinion and in-
sucient source materials.
Herskovits did not view either Woodson

or Du Bois as objective scholars. He believed that both Woodson and
Du Bois were more interested in racial uplift than detached scholarship
and compromised their scholarship by engaging in polemics.
Hersko-
vits, who knew of Du Boiss early emphasis on the African heritage of
American Negroes, later commented: Du Bois has always been inter-
ested in the African background, perhaps more romantically than in
terms of serious scholarship, but it is important that he did take them
into account, however inadequately, in discussing the situation of the
Negro in this country at the time when he wrote.
Herskovits main-
tained that neither Du Bois nor Woodson had conducted extensive eld-
work among Africans or African Americans, and consequently their
work was questionable as scholarship. In fact, Du Bois had done exten-
sive eldwork among African Americans, work that culminated in his
Atlanta University studies and his study of blacks in Philadelphia.
Herskovits asserted that direct comparison of American Negro culture

and West African cultures would not yield any reasonable conclusions
about African cultural inuences in America because the American
Negro has been too deeply acculturated to European patterns of be-
havior and the ancestral cultures are in many cases too complex. He
argued that the only workable method of nding and analyzing Afri-
canisms in American Negro life with any degree of scientic accuracy is
to follow these customs through the New World where, in the labora-
tory made available by the accident of history, one can see certain cus-
toms that deviate from the common African pattern becoming less and
less like what is found in this country until, in cultures like those of the
Haitian or Cuban or Brazilian or Guiana Negroes, their African nature
becomes recognizable and the task of assessing their place in related
African societies can be undertaken.
Thus Herskovits maintained that

his own method of analyzing African American cultures was the only
viable one. In fact, Herskovits had done little eldwork in the United
States, and his source materials on American blacks were quite limited.
Anthropologist St. Clair Drake later commented that Herskovitss lack
of eld research in black communities in the United States was under-
standable in view of the fact that anthropologists generally did not carry
out participant-observation studies in their own societies.
Nonethe-
107
less, Herskovitss observations of black American culture had provided
him anecdotal evidence of African cultural survivals. For example, in
1929 the Herskovitses went to a [black] Sanctied Church . . . in
Evanston [where they] found [what] was practically a Param[ar]ibo
[Suriname] winti dance. The same dancing, the same trembling of the
body, the hand-clapping, the speaking of tongues, the xed, vacant
expression of spirit-possession. It was astonishing.
Herskovits concluded his preliminary memorandum by emphasiz-

ing the sociopolitical importance of reexamining black culture and his-
tory. Black cultural traits, including possession in Negro churches,
motor behavior, folktales, funeral rites, and structural features of Negro
songs, must be reanalyzed to determine their cultural and historical
origins and inuences. Furthermore, black history must be reassessed to
determine how blacks reacted to enslavement, from which regions Afri-
can were enslaved, and how African culture inuenced the slaves. The
results of this study would have broad signicance for African Ameri-
cans. Herskovits believed that the evidence would demonstrate the cre-
ativity and agency of African Americans in shaping their own destinies
against the connes of slavery and oppression. He maintained that un-
til the Negro faces his African endowments and learns to value them,
he must experience many of the additional handicaps that derive from
the socialized ambivalence towards his position in society, and his own
group, which has been found to operate so sharply in a country like
Haiti.
Herskovits argued that the uncovering of a usable past would

ultimately free African Americans from this socialized ambivalence to-
ward their own historical roots.
In making the argument that knowledge of the dynamism and strength
of African cultures would improve African Americans self-respect, Hers-
kovits now deviated from his longtime advocacy of the pursuit of the
truth regardless of any political motives. While Herskovits had criticized
Du Bois and Woodson for permitting their interest in racial uplift to
compromise their objectivity, Herskovits was now overtly stating that his
work, too, was motivated, at least in part, by the pursuit of racial uplift.
Although Guy Johnson liked Herskovitss plan to write a memoran-
dum on the African cultural inuence on black Americans, he criticized
Herskovitss conclusions. Johnson told Myrdal that there was little evi-
dence of scholarly support for the myths that Herskovits had enumer-
ated regarding the black past. Johnson based this on his belief that a
108
writers passing comments on . . . African heritages often play no
necessary role in the writers arguments and thus should be omitted
from the study. Nonetheless, Johnson wondered if the ideas which Ne-
groes have about African heritages are really more important than the
heritages themselves, and he proposed a rather intense psychological
probing of several Negroes.
Herskovits rejected Johnsons criticisms

on the documentation of writings supporting myths about blacks, but he
did agree with Johnsons focus on blacks ideas about their African heri-
tage. Herskovits maintained that the practical signicance of his work
was precisely the value judgments about black culture made by blacks
and whites.
Myrdals dierences with Herskovits escalated in early 1940, leading

Myrdal to express his irritation to Ralph Bunche: Mel Herskovits is
rather crazy at present. He sees everything in the light of African inheri-
tance. Myrdal tried to persuade Herskovits to delete the section criticiz-
ing other scholars and to focus instead on the evidence supporting his
interpretation.
Ultimately, Myrdals dierences with Herskovits on

the culture question and Myrdals belief that Herskovits was excessively
biased on the question of African survivals led to the exclusion of Hers-
kovitss interpretation from the nal report.
As a result of the war in Europe, Myrdal returned to Sweden in May

1940 (he returned to the United States in March 1941), which delayed
the writing of his report. In December Myrdals associates decided to
publish some of the research memoranda as separate monographs. Car-
negie Corporation president Frederick Keppel asked sta members if
they wished to publish their work, and Herskovits quickly responded
with his formal request for the publication of my Memorandum, The
Myth of the Negro Past.
In July 1941 a selection committee consisting of Donald Young, so-

ciologist William F. Ogburn, and Shelby Harrison, director of the Rus-
sell Sage Foundation, reviewed the manuscripts prepared for the Negro
study and chose nine, including Herskovitss Myth, as worthy of inde-
pendent publication. Others were eliminated on grounds that they were
either biased or substandard.
The publication of The Myth of the Negro Past in 1941 marked the
capstone of Herskovitss eorts to demonstrate the important inuence
of African culture in the Americas.
Based on his groundbreaking eld-

work in Suriname, Dahomey, Haiti, and Trinidad and extensive library
109
research on black Americans, Herskovits now emphasized the complex-
ity and strength of African American culture, which was the product
of the historical interaction of people of African descent with Euro-
Americans and Native Americans. At the same time, Herskovits chal-
lenged the dominant scholarly view that the cruelty of the slave trade and
the superiority of Western culture had stripped African Americans of
their culture. He also directly challenged both liberal assimilationists and
conservative segregationists by arguing that African Americans had cre-
ated their own culture by combining aspects of both Euro-American
culture and African culture.
In stressing the African elements in black

culture, Herskovits stood virtually alone among white social scientists.
Herskovitss argument for Africanisms in America was based on four

premises. First, African culture was strong, complex, and resilient when
placed in contact with other cultures.
Second, the cultures of the area of

West Africa from which the slaves were taken were similar enough that a
slave from any part of it would nd little diculty in adapting himself to
whatever specic forms of African behavior he might encounter in the
New World.
Third, enslaved Africans came from all segments of so-

ciety, not just the weak or unintelligent, and thus brought the full com-
plexity of West African culture with them.
Finally, African Americans

incorporated Western cultural forms while retaining inner [African]
values. These African values were particularly noteworthy in African
American religious practices and beliefs. Examples include the African-
like shouts found in some black Baptist churches and the importance of
the devil, which was conceptualized like the African trickster-god in black
folk beliefs.
Similarly, even though African Americans adapted them-

selves to outward Euro-American conventions of lodges and funerals,
they retained African patterns of mutual self-help in matters relating to
death. According to Herskovits, the retention of African values was the
most important single factor making for an understanding of the ac-
culturative situation for Africans in America.
Although he conceded that there was no absolute proof of the presence

of Africanisms in black American life because of the lack of sucient his-
torical and ethnographic research, Herskovits oered numerous exam-
ples of African-type behavior exhibited by American Negroes.
Planting
methods in the Gullah Islands of South Carolina, for instance, paralleled
those in Haiti and Dahomey. Herskovits also found among American
Negroes the African behavior of turning the head when laughing. The
110
call-and-response style of worship in many Negro churches was an Afri-
can survival. Other African-inuenced cultural traits included the mater-
nal family, burial and funeral practices, spirituals, dance, folklore, and
language construction and idioms.
In this acculturation study, Herskovits also argued that cultural ex-

change was a two-way street. Drawing on his earlier work on the subject,
Herskovits dened acculturation as the study of those phenomena
which result when groups of individuals having dierent cultures come
into continuous rsthand contact, with subsequent changes in the origi-
nal cultural patterns of either or both groups.
Thus Herskovits main-

tained that just as European and Euro-American culture inuenced Afri-
cans, African and African American culture inuenced whites.
A few years earlier Herskovits had explained the African inuence on

American culture. He argued that jazz and other black forms of music
were inuenced by African music. Herskovits based this on his record-
ings of the Ashanti of West Africa, who employed part singing, and
songs in the minor key in Dahomey. He believed that black work
songs, songs of derision, love songs and dance songs, which evidenced
rhythms reminiscent of African music, had inuenced the creation of
jazz music. Herskovits also argued that the musicality and the presence
of a melodic line in southern speech corresponded with West African
speechs dierent tonal registers, which give a word a particular mean-
ing. In addition, African idioms, such as the use of the word hot for
exciting, were found in American speech. Other Africanisms in Ameri-
can culture included the southern emphasis on proper manners and
graciousness; the culinary practices of deep frying with fat, the use of
high seasoning, and the use of the African word gumbo; and the
religious practices of ecstatic and charismatic sects, including ritual pos-
session and shouting.
Herskovits argued that his ndings regarding the African heritage of

black Americans and their history in North America had broad practical
and political signicance. He believed that the reason that many black
intellectuals denied or rejected the signicance of the African heritage
was because they had accepted the popular notion that African and Afri-
can American cultures were inferior to European or Western culture. In
this connection, Herskovits cited a telling statement made a few years
earlier by Carter Woodson: Negroes themselves accept as a compliment
the theory of a complete break with Africa, for above all things they do
111
not care to be known as resembling in any way those terrible Afri-
cans.
In support of Woodsons remarks, Herskovits oered a state-

ment by E. Franklin Frazier as evidence: If . . . the most striking thing
about the Chinese is their deep culture, the most conspicuous thing
about the Negro is his lack of a culture.
Herskovits believed that

this view meant that blacks were ashamed of their African heritage. He
opined, A people that denies its past cannot escape being a prey to
doubt of its value today and of its potentialities for the future.
Hersko-
vits argued that his work would help to destroy black shame about an
inadequate or nonexistent past: Giving the Negro an appreciation of
his past is to endow him with the condence in his own position in this
country and in the world. Therefore Herskovits marshaled extensive
evidence of the strength and creativity of African cultures. He also cited
recent studies of slave resistance by historians Harvey Wish and Herbert
Aptheker to discredit the prevalent view that the slaves contentedly ac-
cepted their condition.
In addition, Herskovits maintained that the knowledge of complex

and enduring African cultures, the African cultural heritage of New
World Negroes, and the record of slave resistance would have a salutary
eect on whites. Since one of the causes of white prejudice about blacks
was whites negative evaluation of black culture and history, Herskovits
believed that a more accurate account of African American history and
culture would reduce white prejudice. Thus Herskovitss work would
alleviate racial problems by improving blacks self-respect and reducing
whites racism.
The Myth of the Negro Past proved to be Herskovitss most controver-

sial book. Although the book received much praise, it was also severely
attacked. Not surprisingly, several scholars, including Guy Johnson and
E. Franklin Frazier, who Herskovits accused of perpetuating the myth of
the Negro past, criticized him for overstating the case for Africanisms.
Herbert Aptheker also attacked the book, maintaining that Herskovitss

argument for many Africanisms was based on assertion and insucient
evidence.
Woodson and Du Bois endorsed the books interpretation of black

culture. Woodson praised Herskovits for having the courage to ques-
tion the stereotype opinions of the past of the Negro. Not surprisingly,
Woodson agreed with Herskovits that black culture was strongly inu-
enced by the African heritage.
Du Bois also praised the book for its

112
important conclusions regarding black culture and its African heritage.
The dean of black scholars agreed with Herskovitss view that the African
inuence was of great signicance throughout the Americas and par-
ticularly in the United States.
Similarly, anthropologists Allan Hulsizer and Ruth Benedict found

Herskovitss African survivals thesis generally persuasive. Benedicts
reaction constituted a change in her position on the subject. The year
before in Race: Science and Politics, Benedict had concluded, Their
[blacks] patterns of political, economic, and artistic behavior were for-
gotteneven the languages they had spoken in Africa.
Benedict,
however, still was not convinced that the Africanisms were as signicant
as Herskovits had argued. Hulsizer and Benedict reached opposite con-
clusions about the practical eect on race relations of Herskovitss rein-
terpretation of black culture. Hulsizer agreed with Herskovits that an
even-handed account of the African heritage of blacks would have a
positive impact on whites views of blacks and would help to ameliorate
the Negro inferiority complex.
But Benedict was put o by the

books polemical tone and was not persuaded by Herskovitss argu-
ment that an understanding of the African background was crucial to
dealing with the Negro problem. Rather, she believed that contempo-
rary conditions were much more important.
That the anthropologists were more supportive of the African survival

thesis than the sociologists demonstrates the diering perspectives of
the two social sciences. Sociologists, generally interested in examining
contemporary institutions, usually conceived American culture as static
and undierentiated. According to this view, a people learned and
acquired American culture in an essentially passive process. Thus
blacks would passively assimilate mainstream American culture, an ide-
alized conception of the middle class.
Herskovitss position armed

the anthropologists more dynamic view of culture change. For anthro-
pologists, acculturation meant a two-way exchange of culture when two
peoples came into continuous cultural contact.
Furthermore, anthro-
pologists, employing the concept of cultural relativism, rejected the no-
tion of ranking cultures in a hierarchy. From this perspective, anthropol-
ogists were inclined to accept the notion of African cultural inuence
while rejecting the assertion that a peoples culture could be simply a
pathological version of another culture. As Donald Campbell has ob-
served, the criticism by sociologists would not have threatened Hersko-
113
vitss support for his own position but would have made him think that
he was even more correct, given his strong belief in the anthropological
perspective.
Nonetheless, criticism of The Myth of the Negro Past came fast and,
occasionally, furious. Although Alain Locke endorsed Herskovitss ar-
gument that changing the publics view of African Americans cultural
heritage might undermine views of blacks as inferior, he also maintained
that Herskovits was being naive and over-optimistic when he argued
that this would change race relations in a signicant way. Locke asserted
that by emphasizing the Negros peculiar traits and their persistence in
American culture, the book would tend to reenforce rather than abate
the conventional sense of dierence and separateness.
Myrdal oered his critique of The Myth of the Negro Past in An Ameri-
can Dilemma. In the chapter entitled The Negro Protest, in the section
on Negro History and Culture, he characterized Herskovits as one of
several Negro History propagandists. Myrdal asserted that Herskovits
had recently rendered yeoman service to the Negro History propagan-
dists by his excellent eld studies of certain African and West Indian
Negro groups and by publishing The Myth to glorify African culture
generally and to show how it has survived in the American Negro com-
munity. He has avowedly done this to give the Negro condence in
himself and to give the white man less reason to have race prejudice.
Myrdal, however, rejected Herskovitss conclusion that his study would

lead to improved race relations, since Herskovits did not explicitly exam-
ine the causes of race prejudice.
In the section of An American Dilemma that focused on the black

community, Myrdal rejected Herskovitss interpretation of black Ameri-
can culture as strong, distinct, and retaining African cultural elements.
Instead, Myrdal asserted that African American culture was not in-
dependent of general American culture. Moreover, he argued, [i]n
practically all its divergencies, American Negro culture . . . is a dis-
torted development, or a pathological condition, of the general Ameri-
can culture.
Perhaps the most adamant critic of Herskovits was E. Franklin Frazier

who, in his review in Nation, attacked The Myth of the Negro Past on
several grounds. Frazier reproved Herskovits for failing to properly dif-
ferentiate his attacks on objective scholars and racist scholars who dis-
agreed with the African survival thesis. Frazier maintained, The conclu-
114
sions of such scholars as Robert E. Park, Edward B. Reuter, and Guy
Johnson may be wrong, but they are not the result of race prejudice and
should not be classed with the opinion of men who think that Negroes
are naturally of a childlike character. He also rejected Herskovitss argu-
ment that competent Negro scholars [who] do not nd African cul-
tural survivals in every phase of Negro life . . . are ashamed of their past.
Frazier pointed out that many race-conscious educated Negroes with
little regard for scientic knowledge [Frazier may be referring to Wood-
son and Du Bois here] ascribe the Negros contributions to his African
background.
Although he praised Herskovits for his complex analysis of African

survivals and his excellent discussions of African culture and black re-
sistance to slavery, Frazier rejected most of Herskovitss evidence for
African survivals in the United States. While conceding that there were
African survivals in language and the arts, he dismissed Herskovitss
evidence in other areas as mere speculation that can not be regarded as
scientic proof. For example, Frazier rejected Herskovitss explanation
for the inclination of slaves to become Baptists. Herskovits suggested
that the presence of many West African river cult priests among the slaves
predisposed many of them to become Baptists due to the common prac-
tice of full immersion. Frazier, by contrast, argued that proselytizing of
the slaves was more likely causative. He also castigated Herskovits for
emphasizing the transplantation of vague underlying attitudes and val-
ues from Africa to America when he could not pinpoint specic African
cultural elements in the lifestyle of black Americans.
Frazier, who had recently published The Negro Family in the United
States (1939), rejected Herskovitss analysis of the African American fam-
ily. While Frazier maintained that the rural black familys tendency to-
ward matriarchy was a vestige of slavery, Herskovits had argued that
black matriarchy was an African survival that was reinforced by the
breakup of families during slavery.
In this connection, Frazier charged

that Herskovitss belief in the toughness of culture [sometimes] . . .
leads him to ascribe diametrically opposed social phenomena to African
backgrounds. According to Frazier, Herskovits attributed both the key
role of mothers in families of poor blacks and the stability of closely knit
patriarchal families of acculturated mulattoes to the African heritage.
Finally, Frazier disagreed with Herskovitss argument that by showing

that the Negro had a cultural past and that the Negros cultural past
115
still inuences his behavior [this] will alter his status in American life.
He argued that although white Americans acknowledged that the Chi-
nese and the Japanese had a cultural heritage, those two groups still
suered from discrimination. Furthermore, Frazier maintained that
Herskovitss emphasis on black Americas cultural dierences from white
Americas culture lent support to those who argued that blacks would
never completely acculturate to mainstream American life. Thus for Fra-
zier, Herskovitss position implied that even more fundamental barriers
exist between blacks and whites than are generally recognized.
Guy
Johnson also feared that Herskovitss interpretation would bolster segre-
gationists. In his review of The Myth of the Negro Past, he explained, One
immensely practical problem is how to prevent this book, which has a
high purpose and should do much good, from becoming the hand-
maiden of those who are looking for new justications for the segrega-
tion and dierential treatment of Negroes!
Fraziers belief that Herskovitss argument might provide support for

white segregationists loomed large in his rejection of the Herskovits
thesis. As Anthony Platt has observed, Fraziers attack on Herskovitss
emphasis on Negro and African culture was based on strategy as well as
scholarship. Frazier believed that emphasizing dierences between the
cultures of white and black Americans would conrm racist assumptions
of black inferiority.
In a 1941 speech in Harlem, Frazier asserted, [I]f

whites came to believe that Negros social behavior was rooted [in]
African cultures, they would lose whatever sense of guilt they had for
keeping the Negro down. Negro crime, for example, could be explained
away as an Africanism rather than as due to inadequate police and court
protection and to inadequate education.
Frazier was also concerned that black nationalists, who he opposed,

would cite Herskovitss work in support of their goals. Platt has noted
that Frazier was opposed to the concept of a unique cultural develop-
ment for the Negro [as he believed it was] politically dangerous because
it conrmed the prejudices of scientic racism.
Therefore Frazier
downplayed the inuence of black nationalist movements, including Gar-
veys movement, which he characterized as a short-lived movement with
little support. He insisted that blacks did not believe they were part of a
separate culture, nor did they generally support separatist movements.
In fact, black nationalism had enjoyed signicant support in the black

community since before the Civil War. During the 1920s popular support
116
for Garveys Universal Negro Improvement Association dwarfed that of
the naacp and other integrationist organizations.
Nonetheless, Fra-
zier insisted that the Negro belongs among the assimilationist rather
than the pluralistic, secessionist or militant minorities.
It is worth noting that neither Charles S. Johnson, Guy B. Johnson,

nor Frazier denied that there were some African survivals present in
black American culture. On one level, the argument between them and
Herskovits was over the degree of the African inuence. In denying the
existence of a separate black culture, however, his critics inadvertently
provided Herskovits with an indication that they did so not based on the
evidence but because of their desire to undercut any notions that there
were dierences between black culture and white culture. Herskovits
believed that Fraziers emphatic disagreement with his own position on
the African cultural inuence indicated something of an emotional tie-
up.
In general, Herskovits maintained that his critics had the skepti-

cism of conviction rather than of scientic method, and, therefore, tend
to talk around what they assume my position to be rather than do the
kind of digging that was necessary.
Herskovitss dismissal of his critics as unscientic and emotional re-

ected his insensitivity about the stakes of this debate for black schol-
ars. As Jonathan Holloway has observed, even a Jewish intellectual
like Herskovits, living in an age of fascism abroad and anti-Semitism at
home, was unable to understand the particular exigencies of the black
experience in the United States. . . . Fraziers concerns were rooted in the
fact that as a black intellectual he was open to certain material risks
lynch mobs, for instancethat would have been alien to Herskovits.
Although he never wavered in his conviction that his views on black

culture were correct, Herskovits was hurt by the severe reactions of the
black intellectuals whom he considered to be his friends. Recently, Hers-
kovitss daughter, Jean, recalled how The Myth of the Negro Past infuri-
ated the black intelligentsia. Herskovits lost friendships over the ques-
tion of black culture. His relationships with Frazier and Bunche suered,
and their interaction diminished signicantly, an outcome that was very
painful to Herskovits.
The ambivalence of black American intellectuals about their African

heritage was replicated in the reaction to Herskovitss book by West
African intellectuals. In July 1944 Meyer Fortes, director of the Institute
of West African Art, Industries, and Social Sciences in Nigeria, wrote
117
Herskovits, It [The Myth of the Negro Past] caused quite a stir among the
Lagos intellectuals to some of whom I showed it. They are caught up in a
typical ambivalence of feelings about African culture. On the one hand
their principal urge is to get away from their tribal past. On the other
they go to extremes in claiming as ancient a cultural heritage as the white
man has.
Herskovits replied that the West African intellectuals reac-

tions were matched absolutely by those of Negro intellectuals in this
country, though not by the Negroes in general.
Lending credence to
Herskovitss statement was poet and journalist Frank Marshall Daviss
review published in the Chicago Bee, a black newspaper, perhaps repre-
senting the black masses, which lauded The Myth of the Negro Past for
showing that, contrary to the received view, black Americans had an
impressive past in Africa.
The debate on the nature of black culture continued through the post
World War II era. Herskovitss thesis of an African-inuenced black cul-
ture remained as provocative throughout the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s as
it was in 1941. With the emergence of the integrationist-oriented civil
rights movement, most liberal black and white intellectuals continued
to question the usefulness of emphasizing African survivals in the cul-
ture of black Americans. They believed that stressing the dierences be-
tween black culture and white culture would provide justication for
continued racial segregation based on the idea that blacks, due to their
dierent culture, could not assimilate into the mainstream culture of
white Americans.
Frazier continued to lead the anti-Herskovits forces. Although he ar-
gued in December 1942 that Negro institutions were not simply ac-
commodations to slavery and caste conditions, he did not embrace the
creative aspects of black culture. Instead, he intoned that much of Ne-
gro behavior can be explained through his isolation which is responsible
for the incomplete assimilation of the white mans culture.
In 1949,
in The Negro in the United States, Frazier argued that although the en-
slavement of Africans as well as the ordeal of the journey to the West
Indiesthe middle passagedid not destroy completely their African
heritage . . . in the New World, particularly in what became the United
States, . . . new conditions of life destroyed the signicance of their
African heritage and caused new habits and attitudes to develop to meet
new situations. Despite fresh importations from Africa, the process of
sloughing o African culture continued. Since Emancipation this pro-
118
cess has been so thoroughgoing that at the present time only in certain
isolated areas can one discover what might be justly called African cul-
tural survivals.
During the naacps legal battle against segregated public schools, the
Legal Defense and Education Fund (ldef) purposely omitted the argu-
ment that black American culture had unique aspects related to the Afri-
can heritage. As anthropologist Lee Baker has observed, the ldef did not
want to emphasize cultural dierence; it sought to undercut any rationale
for separating blacks and whites. Consequently, it thoroughly embraced
the Myrdal position and only employed anthropologists to disprove the
notion that blacks were genetically inferior to whites. Thus Herskovitss
position on black culture was excluded from the legal briefs.
During the postwar era the position of Myrdal and Frazier that black
culture was a pathological version of white culture assumed the status of
orthodoxy.
As late as 1962 the president of the American Sociological

Association, Everett Hughes, representing the dominant view among
white sociologists, declared that the Negro Americans want to disap-
pear as a dened group; they want to become invisible as a group, while
each of them becomes fully visible as a human being.
Similarly, in
1965, two years after Herskovits had died, virtually nobody challenged
the conclusions of Daniel Patrick Moynihan and Nathan Glazer in Be-
yond the Melting Pot, that while other ethnic groups had historical and
cultural backgrounds to help dene them, African-Americans were with-
out such historical and cultural context. The Negro is only an American
and nothing else, they concluded. He has no history and culture to
guard and protect.
While Herskovits concentrated on the formation and administration

of the African studies program at Northwestern during the postwar era,
he continued to develop and publicize his interpretation of black culture
and the African inuence. In 1958 Herskovits published a second edition
of The Myth of the Negro Past. In the preface he discussed key devel-
opments in the debate on black culture that had occurred since the pub-
lication of the rst edition. Important research had been carried out
throughout the Americas on the culture of various African American
peoples. In addition, a number of valuable studies of West African cul-
tures had been completed. As a result, a more precise understanding of
the inuence of African cultures in the Americas was now possible. Al-
though several studies of black communities in the United States had
119
been completed in recent years, Herskovits pointed out that these stud-
ies did not make the connection between African and American culture
because they failed to use ethnohistory as a methodological tool, and to
make use of relevant comparative data.
Due to his focus on African

studies during the postwar era, Herskovits, who had not conducted
ethnographic eldwork in the United States before the war, did little to
remedy this omission. He did, however, along with his colleague Alan
Merriam, help direct a doctoral dissertation on black culture by an Afri-
can American, George Robinson Ricks. Based on extensive research in
nine southern cities and intensive eldwork in Chicago, Rickss Some
Aspects of the Religious Music of the United States Negro: An Eth-
nomusicological Study with Special Emphasis on the Gospel Tradition
was perhaps the rst dissertation on black gospel music. It is also worth
noting that Herskovits suggested the topic to Ricks.
The lack of research on black culture in the United States diminished

any chance that the divergent views of Frazier and Herskovits would be
reconciled during the 1940s and 1950s. John Szwed has observed that
most anthropologists accepted the view that black culture was nonexis-
tent and avoided research on the subject. They found it an unpleasant
experience to enter into a eld of inquiry in which laymen had preceded
them and had given racist interpretations to the cultural dierences
between whites and blacks. Anthropologists accepted the notion of a
melting pot society and refrained from undertaking research on other
ethnic groups that might challenge [their assumptions], . . . except
where the culturally dierent groups could be shown to have behaviors
clearly positive in white middle-class terms. Consequently, we have doz-
ens of articles in anthropological journals on Japanese-Americans, whose
enterprise, thrift, and cleanliness are stressed.
Meanwhile, during the 1950s many anthropologists de-emphasized

cultural pluralism and focused on cultures as components in a developing
global cultural system. These neo-evolutionist anthropologists empha-
sized the material and structural parts of this global system and dismissed
religion and folklore, which Herskovits emphasized, as insignicant.
In 1959 Herskovits observed that social scientists, and particularly

anthropologists who studied African Americans, were a priori denying
any signicant African inuence on New World Negro cultures. Instead
of marshalling evidence to repudiate Herskovitss view, they would raise
questions about certain details and then reject the whole interpretation
120
as untenable. Moreover, some anthropologists created a quite unrea-
sonable burden of proof on those who would study the functioning of
an African component in New World Negro cultures. Anthropologist
M. G. Smith, for example, argued that traits regarded as evidence of the
persistence of African cultural forms must be formally peculiar and dis-
tinct from the customs or institutions of all other cultural groups within
the society of their location.
This requirement, however, was not

made for European inuences.
Social scientists had created a special interpretive framework for ana-
lyzing black culture, in a sense segregating the study of black culture
from the study of other cultures.
Social scientists discarded their

most sacred dogmasvalue-free methods and the necessity for rsthand
empirical evidence. Then they proceeded to pronounce on black peo-
ple in a thoroughly nonrelativistic manner.
Liberal social scientists denied dierences between black and white

culture or explained that the dierences were due to pathologies present
in black culture because they believed that their analysis served the cause
of social justice. Some believed that by departing from standard practice
to avoid depicting black culture as dierent from white culture, they
mitigated the chance that the dierences would be seized on by racists to
justify segregation. Other social scientists clung to the pathology analysis
of black culture to promote government programs that would alleviate
the problems in black communities.
Daryl Scott has argued in support of the latter view. He maintained

that during the late 1940s and 1950s liberal social scientistsnotably
E. Franklin Frazier, Abram Kardiner, Lionel Ovesey, and Arnold Rose
emphasized black pathology and black self-hate as a natural result of
white oppression. In Mark of Oppression, Kardiner and Ovesey main-
tained that blacks idealized unobtainable white standards, leading
blacks to frustration and the hatred of themselves and their group. These
social scientists argued that the root cause of black self-hate was ra-
cial discrimination by whites. Similarly, Rose observed, When one is
abused or insulted and forces oneself to react passively, the hatred that
would normally be directed toward the abusing person is instead turned
inward.
In any event, social scientists disseminated a distorted view of black

culture. According to this position, blacks were not creators of culture.
Victimized by white oppression, they adopted a pathological version
121
of white culture. In promulgating this view, social scientists allowed
shabby research on Afro-Americans in the United States to persist.
In
his 1944 review of the Myrdal study, unpublished until 1964, the black
writer Ralph Ellison brilliantly illuminated the fallacy in this reasoning:
But can a people . . . live and develop for over three hundred years
simply by reacting? Ellison answered his own question in the negative,
asserting that all cultures had creative aspects that could not be explained
as mere reactions to another culture. Furthermore, he suggested that
blacks had rejected aspects of white culture because they were perhaps
pathological themselves. In this connection, Ellison wrote, if
lynching and Hollywood, fadism and radio advertising are products of
the higher culture, . . . the Negro might ask, Why, if my culture is
pathological, must I exchange it for these?
This debate on black culture was not merely academic. By spreading a

view of black culture as deviant, social scientists exacerbated the racial
divide in America during the postwar era. In championing the notion of a
pathological black culture and rejecting the notion of a creative black cul-
ture, social scientists had done what they had wanted to avoid: increase
the divisions between blacks and whites.
The Herskovits view of black

culture constituted a corrective to the dominant social science perspec-
tive. By emphasizing that African Americans, like all Americans, retained
parts of their cultural heritage, Herskovits sought to demonstrate the
universals and the particulars of the African American experience. In
doing so, Herskovits hoped to build a bridge between whites and blacks
based on the universality of their respective cultural experiences.
123
chapter five
Objectivity and the Development
of Negro Studies
Objectivity is not neutrality, but alienation from self and society. . . . Objec-
tivity is the way one comes to terms and makes peace with a world one does
not like but will not oppose.Alvin Gouldner
Everywhere the learned world is split into schools and rare indeed is the
savant who does not appear to be at war with himself in his own bosom.
Charles Beard
A
fter world war i the academy was transformed when
many social scientists embraced a detachment from public pol-
icy, a development that had a profound inuence on Hersko-
vits, who was just beginning his professional career. Before the war,
Progressive Era intellectuals had employed science as a way of achieving
progress and curing societys ills. Liberal social scientists pursued re-
search designed to shape public policy in favor of reform, while racist
social scientists promoted government policies such as immigration re-
striction of southern and eastern Europeans. Acting as advocates for
education, settlement houses, and political reform, Progressive intellec-
tuals sought to create a more democratic society. The uidity between
social science and reform was demonstrated by the fact that the Ameri-
can Social Science Association (assa), formed after the Civil War, in-
cluded both social reformers and social scientists.
Several complementary developments led many Progressive social sci-

entists to disavow their faith in social reform by the 1920s. During the
rst two decades of the twentieth century conservative college presidents
red numerous social scientists for advocating political and social re-
form. In order to safeguard their positions, academics backed away from
Objectivity and the Development of Negro Studies
124
advocacy and embraced quantitative research.
Meanwhile, social scien-

tists became disillusioned with what they perceived as the futility of
Progressive attempts at reform. Political reforms such as the presidential
primaries failed in their democratizing mission, with the public being
manipulated by electioneering and public relations specialists. Similarly,
moral advocacy for social reform had led not to democracy but to the co-
opting of religion by fundamentalism.
The First World War reinforced social scientists move away from
advocacy, as they exchanged moral fervor for reform for a reverence
for scientic knowledge and technological innovation.
Psychologists
administered intelligence tests to army recruits, economists helped with
resource mobilization, and historians, economists, and ethnologists pro-
vided expert knowledge in preparation for the Paris Peace Conference.
Disillusioned with moral advocacy and reform, many intellectuals

placed their hopes in pure science.
Progressive reformers and uplifters

gave way to detached professionals. A language of eciency and social
control gradually eclipsed the humanitarian, moralistic rhetoric of ear-
lier reformers.
In this way, social scientists sought to increase their

authority by reestablishing their scientic credentials as professionals
and by distinguishing themselves from political advocates.
Thus, as
Barry Karl has observed, the new idealists of the twenties chose not
to call themselves progressives and certainly not reformers. They had
moved out of the turbulent world of politics into the ordered world of
science.
Objectivist social scientists sought to establish themselves as a knowl-

edge-elite by privileging their knowledge over that of nonprofessional
social scientists who did not have the proper credentials or compromised
their objectivity by pursuing social reform. As Donald Fisher has ob-
served, however, neither science nor social science is separate or distinc-
tive in and of itself. Nonetheless, social scientists acted on the belief that
their knowledge was distinctive. They sought to convince others by
claiming that they were objective scientists uninterested in the practical
implications of their work.
A minority of social scientists rejected the notion that social science

should or could be a value-free endeavor. They insisted that academics
admit that their beliefs inuenced their research. I dont say that you
ought to write history on the basis of your assumptionsbut I say you
do, maintained political scientist and historian Charles Beard. Others
125
wholeheartedly embraced research designed to achieve social reform.
Sociologist Robert Lynd argued that knowledge must have a social pur-
pose. He maintained that social scientists put too much emphasis on
quantication and should concern themselves instead with both norma-
tive goals and facts.
Thus the 1920s and 1930s witnessed a crystallization of opposing

perspectives, with social scientists dividing themselves into two conten-
tious factions, which Mark C. Smith has labeled purposivists and service
intellectuals. Although both groups embraced the scientic method,
purposivists believed that social scientists should have denite social
policy goals for their research. By contrast, service intellectuals advocated
an amoral science of technique in which social scientists unearthed
facts and tabulated data without regard to the use of such information.
Professional associations such as the American Economic Association

and the American Political Science Association became battlegrounds
between purposivists and service intellectuals.
Many social scientists, including Herskovits, evidenced the tensions

between the two positions in their own ideas and actions, contradicting
their stated position at one time or another. While he strongly asserted
his detachment from social purposes in his research, Herskovits also
maintained strongly held values that inuenced his writings. The ascen-
dance of the scientism of interwar objectivists did not diminish the vari-
ety of ways in which scholars sought to dene their objectivism. When
social scientists diverged from their allegiance to a strict tabulating of
facts, they still wanted to maintain their status and authority as objec-
tive scholars.
As Mark C. Smith has observed, The debate over the

proper role of the social scientist involved the conict of two of Amer-
icas most widely cherished values: the utility of the scientic method and
the normative goals of social thought.
As some scholars moved away

from activism, others continued to embrace it. At the same time, many
social scientists did not resolve the issue for themselves, leading to con-
tradictory actions.
While he championed the view that an objective scholar must eschew

social activism in ones scholarship, Herskovitss own work was designed
to correct previous scholarship that upheld racial and cultural hierarchy.
He employed the principle of objectivity to reinforce the authority of his
scholarship as he attacked racist social science. In Myth of the Negro Past,
he overtly sought to improve blacks self-image and reduce white preju-
126
dice by disseminating information demonstrating the dynamism and
strength of African and African American cultures. Meanwhile, he at-
tacked other scholars, notably W. E. B. Du Bois and Carter G. Wood-
son, for doing the same thing, mixing scholarship with advocacy. Hers-
kovitss actions and statements reveal the strong egalitarian values and
beliefs that undergirded his research, his attacks on racist scholarship and
racism in society, and his support for tolerance of all cultures. Concur-
rently, however, Herskovits championed the benets of pursuing de-
tached scholarship without regard to social reform goals. In doing so, he
failed to admit that his own egalitarian values and assumptions inu-
enced his research.
Herskovitss assumptions also demonstrated the tension between uni-
versalism and particularism in his professional life. By exalting the idea of
objectivity, he embraced scientic scholarship as a universal truth. To
uphold the principle of objectivity, Herskovits opposed activist schol-
arship. On occasion, he even opposed activism that was in service to
egalitarian goals. In this connection, he undercut eorts by black schol-
ars to diminish their isolation from mainstream academe. By opposing
activist scholarship, Herskovits sometimes reinforced the status quo.
In his eldwork, however, Herskovits upheld a particularistic perspec-
tive. His egalitarianism led him to reject the notion of cultural or racial
hierarchies. He also rejected the notion of universal values because values
diered across cultures. Instead, he asserted that people dened their
own reality and culture and created their own values that could not be
objectively evaluated by outsiders. Thus Herskovits sought to under-
stand African and African American cultures on their own terms.
From the 1920s to the 1940s Herskovits played a prominent role in the
development of the study of people of African descent in the United
States. In his eldwork on African and African American peoples, Hers-
kovits embraced a modern view of Negro studies that focused on blacks
as active agents who made their own history and culture. As early as 1926
Herskovits dened Negro studies as the study of people of African de-
scent in Africa and the Americas, presaging the current eld of African
diaspora studies.
Reecting this perspective, the following year he was

one of the chief speakers at the Fourth Pan-African Congress held in
New York City and attended by 208 delegates from twenty-two states and
ten foreign nations.
Historian Sterling Stuckey later credited Hersko-

vitss scholarship, along with that of Paul Robeson, Du Bois, and Wood-
127
son, with providing an eective and I think obvious theoretical under-
pinning for theories of Pan-Africanism.
By promoting Negro studies

based on antiracist and egalitarian principles and by rejecting racial or
cultural hierarchies in his portrayal of people of African descent, Hersko-
vits corrected earlier scholarship that omitted blacks from study, objec-
tied them, or debased them. He believed that it was absolutely essential
that research be conducted in an objective and unbiased manner. Ra-
tional scientic research would undermine irrational racist beliefs. Sci-
ence would lead to a more just society. By pursuing scientic research,
Herskovits believed that he could provide the knowledge that would
permit people to act more rationally. Herskovits always saw himself as a
professional anthropologist using the New World as a laboratory for
testing hypotheses about culture . . . not as a stimulus to political activity,
observed sociologist St. Clair Drake. But Herskovitss research had a
social purpose, too. He hoped . . . that one result of his scientic work
would be to replace error with truth and thus to increase respect for
Africans and people of African descent, recalled Drake.
As a Jewish scholar in an academic environment dominated by white

Protestantsmany of whom were anti-SemiticHerskovits tried to
deect their tendency to devalue the scholarship on race produced by
Jews, who were assumed to have a subjective, minority, agenda. Thus
Herskovits emphasized his professional legitimacy by wrapping himself
in the mantle of science. By doing so, he hoped to mitigate the general
distrust in intellectual discourse for special interests . . . [which] served
to delegitimize Jewish authorities in the ght against racism.
Like
other Jewish scholars, Herskovits faced anti-Jewish attitudes in his at-
tempts to locate a teaching position after he earned his Ph.D. from
Columbia in 1923. During the 1920s many universities limited Jewish
hiring. In 1927 Yale, Princeton, Johns Hopkins, and the University of
Chicago employed only one Jewish faculty member each, while Colum-
bia had just two.
Herskovits did not gain a full-time teaching position

until four years after he earned his Ph.D. When Northwestern University
nally hired Herskovits in 1927, his college roommate wrote him, It has
worried me a long time that you didnt get a college job; in fact made me
rather bitter. It was rotten to see a good man being excluded because of
nasty prejudice.
In this social climate, Herskovits underscored his scientic perspective

to dispel potential critics. He insisted, As a scientist it does not make a
128
great deal of dierence to me what happens with regard to the informa-
tion I present,that is, I cannot be responsible for what use is made of
the information I give by the persons to whom I give it. That is quite
outside my province. It is my undertaking as a scientist, to analyze the
data that I nd concerning any phase of civilization or particularly any
phase of primitive civilization and to present these data as honestly as
possible.
Similarly, in 1928 Herskovits resisted the naacps request to write

an appreciation of the association on the occasion of its twentieth-
anniversary conference. He argued that his scholarly writings against
scientic racism would be more eective if they came from a detached
scholar: In my work with the Negroes I have consistently avoided
aligning myself with any group among them or any movement concern-
ing them, although I have received invitations from numerous Negro
organizations. . . . I feel that the more detached I am in my work, the
more eective my results will be and the more they will be trusted by all
persons concerned.
Only when Herbert J. Seligmann, naacp publicity director, responded

in the language of professional scholars did he convince Herskovits to
write the appreciation. Seligmann told Herskovits that he did not see
how an expression of opinion or beliefs based on such facts as you know,
made as a detached observer, can aect your standing or the reception of
your work. Seligmann added that only racists who rejected the naacp
and found scientic opinion unnecessary because they know the Nig-
ger would question an endorsement.
Unlike many sociologists and political scientists who embraced objec-

tivism because they were disillusioned by the failures of Progressive Era
advocacy, Herskovitslike other Boasian anthropologistsemployed
objectivity to discredit social scientists who supported the status quo in
race relations or advocated reactionary policies designed to control non-
whites or minority groups.
Thus despite his avowed support for objec-

tivity and detached scholarship, Herskovitss own strongly held egalitar-
ian values inuenced his work in physical and cultural anthropology. He
believed that by shedding light on the diverse cultures of the world, an-
thropologists documented the essential dignity of all human cultures.
In addition to challenging the scholarship of scientic racists, Hersko-

vits also attacked the applied anthropology of European scholars who
used anthropology to support imperialism. He cautioned against the use
129
of anthropology by imperialist countries to deal with the problems
of administration and education confronting government ocials, and
others, who must deal with the primitive folk under their charge.
He
believed that acting in service to a government compromised the intellec-
tual integrity of the scholar. At the same time, Herskovits asserted that
anthropologists were powerless in the face of the great social and eco-
nomic forces that move toward the disintegration of the patterns of
primitive life.
He maintained that native cultures resisted the direction

of European governments or anthropologists employed by those gov-
ernments. Furthermore, if anthropologists planned their studies to sat-
isfy the needs of imperialist ocials, their studies would be awed by the
omission of important aspects of a culture that were of no interest to
administrators.
Herskovits abhorred European scholars who worked

for the state, particularly anthropologists like Bronislaw Malinowski,
whom he believed acted in service to imperialist governments and not a
search for truth. In 1936 Herskovits expressed his irritation at Malinow-
skis prescription for running the lives of the East Africans!
Somewhat inconsistently, Herskovits argued that American anthro-

pologists who cooperated with the Bureau of Indian Aairs were doing
the right thing because Franklin Roosevelts administration, unlike the
imperialist governments of Europe, was unequivocally on the side of
the native [Indian]. Yet he cautioned that the governments attitude
toward American Indians might change, placing the anthropologists
role in question.
Herskovits also attacked anthropologists who conducted research that

was intended to solve racial problems because he believed that these types
of studies often resulted in shoddy work based on faulty assumptions of
racial hierarchy. He maintained that research should be conducted with-
out ulterior motives and proclaimed that, as a scientist, he was con-
cerned neither with race relations nor with what is ordinarily termed the
Negro problem.
Thus he criticized the way in which both physical

and cultural anthropology people tend to go o half-cocked under the
pressure of social conditions. Herskovits cited Harvard anthropologist
Earnest Hootons study in which Hooton claimed that race was posi-
tively correlated with criminality.
Herskovitss objectivism and his rejection of advocacy extended be-

yond his distaste for imperialism and racism, leading him to reprove
liberal scholars who focused on solving social problems in their research.
130
For instance, he criticized anthropologist Ashley Montagus attempts to
seek a solution for the American race problem, which Montagu believed
could be found in education. Herskovits advised Montagu to be con-
tent to remain the anthropologist and not aspire to follow the dim,
treacherous path of what is coming to be termed the social engineer.
Nonetheless, like other Boasian anthropologists, Herskovits em-

ployed knowledge gained through ethnographic research to act as a critic
of American society and culture. During the 1920s intensive cultural
eldwork provided anthropologists with the opportunity to criticize
American society based on a comparison with less technological so-
cieties. In Coming of Age in Samoa (1928), Margaret Mead compared
American and Samoan child-rearing practices and criticized the sexual
inhibitions common in the West. Similarly, Ruth Benedicts studies of
Native American religions compared their religious practices with those
of the West in a critique of Protestant fundamentalism in which she
argued that morality should be separated from religion.
Although Herskovitss social critique was not as explicit as that of

Mead or Benedict, he unquestioningly approved of using the insights
gained from anthropology to educate Americans as to proper values. He
often preached the doctrine of cultural relativism, asserting that all cul-
tures deserved respect and that to preserve the dignity of all cultures, the
imposition of one culture on another must be avoided. He summed up
his philosophy on the role of the citizen-scientist in this way: As scien-
tists the search for truth must come before all else. The debt we owe the
society must be made in terms of long-time payment, in our fundamental
contributions toward an understanding of the nature and processes of
culture and, through this, to the solution of our own basic problems.
This philosophy accords with his argument in The Myth of the Negro Past,
in which Herskovits maintained that his work would have the practical
eect of bettering race relations by improving the self-image of blacks
and changing whites views about blacks to be more positive.
Based on his belief that anthropologists might contribute to the solu-
tion of social problems by advancing the understanding of culture, Hers-
kovits spoke out against racism, imperialism, and injustice, though not
in scholarly publications. As someone who desired the status and inu-
ence accorded the academic who undertook objective scholarship, Hers-
kovits separated his activist tendencies from his scholarly pursuits. Al-
though he eschewed activism in his scholarship, he took active political
1. Herman Herskovits, Melvilles
father. Courtesy Northwestern
University Archives.
2. Franz Boas, who trained
most of the inuential Ameri-
can cultural anthropologists
of the early twentieth century,
had an enormous intellectual
inuence on Herskovits.
American Philosophical Soci-
ety, Philadelphia.
3. Melville and Frances Hers-
kovits on a eld trip in
Suriname. Courtesy North-
western University Archives.
4. Herskovits holding an arti-
fact from Suriname, ca. 1935.
Courtesy Northwestern Uni-
versity Archives.
5. Carter G. Woodson, who
presided over the Association
for the Study of Negro Life
and History and published
the Journal of Negro History,
thought Herskovits was an-
other white paternalist intent
on controlling black studies.
Prints & Photographs/Moor-
land-Spingarn Research Cen-
ter, Howard University,
Washington dc.
6. Board of Advisors of the
Encyclopedia of the Negro
project, 1936, including
W. E. B. Du Bois, front row,
second from right; Alain
Locke, second row, second
from right (holding hat in
right hand); Arthur Schom-
burg, second row, second
from left. Special Collections
and Archives, W. E. B. Du
Bois Library, University of
Massachusetts Amherst.
7. Ralph Bunche, Howard
University political scientist.
Prints & Photographs/Moor-
land-Spingarn Research Cen-
ter, Howard University,
Washington dc.

Image Not Available

8. Gunnar Myrdal, Swedish
economist who headed the
Carnegie Corporation Study of
the Negro. National Archives,
College Park, Maryland.
9. E. Franklin Frazier, Howard
University sociologist and lead-
ing expert on the black family
who rejected the African
inuence on African American
culture. Prints & Photographs/
Moorland-Spingarn Research
Center, Howard University,
Washington dc.
10. Herskovits sitting at his
desk at Northwestern Univer-
sity. Courtesy Northwestern
University Archives.
11. President William V. S.
Tubman of Liberia; J. Roscoe
Miller, president of North-
western University; and
Melville Herskovits during
the Liberian presidents 1954
visit to Northwestern.
Melville J. and Frances S.
Herskovits Photograph Col-
lection, Photographs and
Prints Division, Schomburg
Center for Research in Black
Culture, The New York Public
Library, Astor, Lenox and
Tilden Foundations.
12. Frances Herskovits. She
coauthored ve books and
several articles with her hus-
band, who described her as a
damn good anthropologist.
By Harvey J. Steens, cour-
tesy Northwestern University
Archives.
131
positions in other arenas. Following the completion of his study on the
physical anthropology of Negroes, Herskovits used his authority on the
subject to speak out against racism. In October 1929 Herskovits sup-
ported the publication of a pamphlet by the American Committee for
Democracy and Intellectual Freedom called Science Condemns Rac-
ism: A Reply to the Chamber of Commerce of the State of New York.
In January 1934 Herskovits joined the Conference on Jewish Relations,

which was formed to dispel the various myths which people invent to
justify race prejudice.
In December 1938 Herskovits, Alain Locke, and

Paul Douglas were quoted in an article entitled Experts Review Negro
Prejudice. In his comments Herskovits sought to disprove stereotypes
of blacks by emphasizing their resistance to slavery and the strength of
African civilizations.
In 1947 Herskovits joined with faculty members

in petitioning Northwesterns president to end the longtime exclusion of
black students from the schools dormitories. Herskovits and his col-
leagues asserted that the recently completed Second World War was
fought for principles that present policies of Northwestern deny.
Throughout his life Herskovits held membership in numerous liberal

organizations. As a young man expressing a more radical political view,
he briey joined the Industrial Workers of the World (iww) in 1920. A
longtime member of the American Civil Liberties Union, Herskovits
also joined the Evanston Council for Democratic Action, the Illinois
Chapter of the Progressive Citizens of America, and the Northwestern
University Teachers Union.
On a personal level, however, he some-

times acquiesced to segregation. In May 1943 Herskovits asked friends
on the American Council of Learned Societies (acls) to submit his
name for a non-resident membership in the [Cosmos] Club, a segre-
gated club in Washington dc.
Herskovitss failure to gain foundation nancing for his 1926 plan to

undertake research into the African cultural and biological background of
blacks in the Americas reected the politics of knowledge production at
that time. The young scholars embrace of a strictly detached scholarship
focusing on blacks as subjects and as culture builders placed him at odds
with the dominant views of the foundations.
During the 1920s most

foundations were interested in funding studies that supported the status
quo in politics and society.
Toward that end, they nanced research that

focused on solving social problems that threatened societal order. Thus
132
the Social Science Research Council (ssrc) was interested in studies of
racial dierences and social problems, not in a study that uncovered the
origins of New World Negro cultures and compared them. Although
scientists and social scientists might claim that their research had nothing
to do with politics, research projects are rarely unrelated to the prevailing
social and political climate.
Consequently, the ssrc nanced projects

that focused on studying issues such as racial tensions, nativism, black
northern migration, economic recession, crime increases, and labor con-
ict.
Furthermore, the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorialthe pri-

mary benefactor of the ssrcled by Beardsley Ruml, increasingly em-
phasized practical studies to increase social control.
The foundations
were more interested in a practical social technology that could be
applied to the specic danger zones that threatened the foundation of
society. They were less interested in fundamental theoretical develop-
ment and research.
Therefore the ssrc nanced E. Franklin Fraziers

study of the black family and Charles S. Johnsons extensive study of
Negro problems in the United States.
Herskovitss rst project on the

physical anthropology of American Negroes t the criteria as a study that
would illuminate the race issue and its impact on issues of immigration
and social change. His assertion that a greater understanding of contem-
porary Negro problems will follow a knowledge of the cultural base from
which he has come did not convince the foundations.
In the nal
analysis, Herskovitss interest in the African cultural inuence in the
Americas proved to be too esoteric for the foundations.
Despite great eorts by Herskovits and his supporters to win approval,

several other factors contributed to his proposals failure to win founda-
tion backing.
The interdisciplinary nature of Herskovitss projecthe

would analyze the physical and cultural anthropology of peoples of Afri-
can descentundercut foundation support. The foundations and most
social scientists, whose scholarly authority was based on their mastery
of a specic subject, generally supported studies that were strictly em-
bedded in one subject. They feared that a blurring of disciplinary bound-
aries would threaten their professional status. Although some scholars
advocated an interdisciplinary approachthe ssrc was formed, in part,
to promote such studiesfew scholars did such work. The long-term
tendency in academe was toward division into distinct disciplines, with
social scientists pursuing intradisciplinary professional advancement
rather than pursuing an interdisciplinary approach. Moreover, Hers-
133
kovitss study was not only interdisciplinary, but it crossed the larger
boundaries between the natural and social sciences. His focus on culture
and biology placed his study in a no-mans-land between the ssrc and the
nrc, which had agreed in 1925 to divide the social sciences and the
natural sciences between them.
To bridge these boundaries, Herskovits tried to be all things to all

people. Due to the physical sciences orientation of the nrc, he stressed
physical more than cultural anthropology in his nrc proposal.
By
contrast, in his request to the ssrc, he stressed the culture question,
hoping that due to the ssrcs emphasis on the social sciences, it would be
more receptive to a study of cultural change. In fact, when Herskovits
applied for funding from the nrc, Alfred V. Kidder, chair of the nrc
Division of Anthropology and Psychology, advised him not to tell the
ssrc of his application, as this would limit his chances of success with the
ssrc.
Herskovits student Joseph Greenberg remembered Mortimer

Graves of the acls telling him, Herskovits, that terrible man, . . . he
comes around to me and he tells me anthropology is a humanity and
then he goes around to the ssrc and claims it is a social science and . . .
for all I know he goes to the National Research Council [nrc] and says
it is a physical science.
Herskovitss attempts to make his interdisci-

plinary project more palatable to the major funders proved futile.
Another problem with Herskovitss funding request was its poor tim-
ing; it was premature. The nrc was just organizing its Negro Committee,
which like the Interracial Committee of the ssrc, would not authorize
major funding grants until 1928.
Herskovitss $12,000 project was prob-

ably beyond the scope of the nrc committee, which had a proposed bud-
get of less than $40,000 for three years, about 30 percent of the budget of
the Committee on Scientic Problems of Human Migrations.
Despite the foundations resistance to his plans to study African Amer-

ican cultures, Herskovits stuck to his vision and arranged private funding
so that he could move ahead with his plans, albeit in somewhat dierent
form. During the 1920s funding for anthropological research came pri-
marily from individual contributors and was often channeled through
museums.
Fortunately for Herskovits, one of the major benefactors of

young anthropologists was the wealthy folklorist Elsie Clews Parsons.
Parsons proceeded to provide the major funding for Herskovitss two

Suriname trips and the Dahomey trip. Boas arranged for additional assis-
tance from the Columbia University Social Science Research Council,
134
with the Northwestern Social Science Research Council also providing
some aid for the Suriname and Dahomey trips.
The Laura Spelman

Rockefeller Memorial and the Rockefeller Foundation provided most of
the nancing for a number of university Social Science Research Coun-
cils, including those at Columbia and Northwestern, as well as the na-
tional ssrc.
During the mid to late 1930s Herskovitss increased success in gaining

foundation support for his ethnographic research matched the general
trend. By the close of the 1920s the nrc, the ssrc, and the acls began to
nance cultural studies. This development was primarily the result of the
increasing institutional inuence of Boas and his supporters and their
success at redening the racial research of the nrc in social or cultural
terms. As a result, funding was more likely to be arranged by founda-
tion directorates, committed to more general cultural or social welfare
goals.
Herskovits nanced his 1934 eld trip to Haiti by contributing

$1,300 of his own money to the Columbia University Social Science
Research Council and getting the Rockefeller Foundation to match his
donation. Herskovits also received grants for recording and transcrib-
ing songs, taking movies, and writing Life in a Haitian Valley from the
Northwestern University Social Science Research Council, the acls, the
nrc, and the Carnegie Corporation.
Herskovitss increased success at obtaining funding from the founda-

tions during the 1930s was also attributable to his growing inuence with
the learned societies and foundations. This inuence was directly related
to his renown as an expert on African Americans.
As Herskovitss pro-
fessional status and inuence climbed, the ssrc called on him to serve in
various capacities. In 1928 Herskovits served on the ssrcs Committee
on Race Dierences, which tracked and planned research on racial tests.
In 1929 he served as an adviser on two projects approved by the ssrc

Advisory Committee on Interracial Relations.
By the mid-1930s Hers-

kovitss inuence with the foundations was enhanced by his close friend-
ship with sociologist Donald Young, who was in charge of fellowships
and grants-in-aid at the ssrc.
Joseph Greenberg, a graduate anthropol-

ogy student during the 1930s, remembered Herskovits as a powerful
man with the foundations. To Greenberg, it was like magic how
Herskovits could get fellowships for himself and his students.
Herskovitss increased status and inuence led to greater ease in ob-

taining funding for his own research. The rst Herskovits eld trip to be
135
fully funded by a foundation was the 1939 expedition to Trinidad, for
which the Carnegie Corporation provided $3,250.
The Northwestern
University Graduate School gave additional nancing for tabulating data
from the eld trip.
With the onset of World War II, the foundations foreign policy con-
cerns gave Herskovits greater opportunities for funding his projects. In
1941 increasing concern within the Rockefeller Foundation over Nazi
inuence in Latin America led to a concerted eort to increase American
inuence there. Consequently, the Rockefeller Foundation made fund-
ing available to American researchers to go to Latin America to improve
the possibilities for a long-term intellectual rapprochement with the
United States. Toward that end, the Rockefeller Foundation supported a
project designed to disseminate American social science methods, assess
research possibilities in Latin America, and lay the groundwork for foun-
dation support for training Latin American researchers.
Aware of the Rockefeller Foundations interest in Latin America,

Herskovits submitted a proposal to the foundation outlining his recom-
mendations for anthropological work in Brazil. He would provide eld-
work training to Brazilian students while proceeding with his own re-
search interests in African-inuenced cultures in Bahia and Recife.
Herskovitss proposal for a one-year research trip requiring $10,000 was

approved.
In addition to conducting his own research, Herskovits helped move

Negro studies into the mainstream of academia by establishing anthro-
pology courses focused on African and African American cultures at
Northwestern University.
During his rst year at Northwestern, Hers-

kovits oered courses on race and folklore that concentrated signicant
attention on blacks.
At the time, Herskovits was one of the few

white scholars who taught courses emphasizing black people. In white-
dominated academe, the social sciences and the humanities generally
either disregarded or degraded African Americans. Mainstream social
science and history journals ordinarily excluded articles by or about Afri-
cans or African Americans.
Although sociologists of race relations, led

by the University of Chicagos Robert Park and his students, E. Franklin
Frazier and Charles S. Johnson, did write about African Americans, their
writings were based on the assumption of black cultural inferiority.
These sociologists argued that inferior cultures would disappear and
136
the people would assimilate into the dominant and superior culture of
native-born white Protestants.
While anthropologists, led by Franz Boas, attacked the prevailing

views of pseudoscientic racism, they largely ignored African and Afri-
can American cultures, except in folklore studies, until Herskovits came
on to the scene. During the 1910s and 1920s the Journal of American Folk-
Lore published a number of articles, most by Boas and his students, on
African American folklore, including the rst articles by black anthropol-
ogists such as Arthur Fauset and Zora Neale Hurston.
Herskovits later
recalled how hard he had to push to get the American Anthropological
Association to include studies of Negro peoples who wear trousers
instead of loin cloths. . . . They decided that pants was anthropology!
Anthropologists had traditionally studied isolated nonliterate cultures.

By convincing anthropologists to include acculturation studies as a cen-
tral part of anthropology, Herskovits was able to establish the legitimacy
of studying African American cultures, which were often literate and
interacted with other cultures.
Herskovitss eorts at Northwestern joined him with the few black
colleges and black scholars making eorts to study African Americans
and to place blacks at the center of study. Black scholars sought to reverse
the fact that African Americans were usually excluded as subjects of
study. They also sought to address the failure of the social sciences and
the humanities to study African Americans and Africans as anything but
objects of domination and degradation. In history, Carter G. Woodson
presided over the Association for the Study of Negro Life and His-
tory (asnlh) and published the Journal of Negro History. In sociology,
Charles S. Johnson of Fisk University studied blacks in the context of
race relations.
E. Franklin Frazier of Howard University became the

leading expert on the black family.
W. E. B. Du Bois made signal

contributions in both sociology and history. Black colleges, led by How-
ard University, initiated the eort to teach black studies courses, with the
rst black history courses appearing in the 1910s at several schools.
In developing anthropology at Northwestern, Herskovits sought to

emphasize Negro ethnology, West African linguistics, and West African
archaeology. Known for his spellbinding lectures, he stressed student
preparation for eldwork by obtaining student fellowships, inviting vis-
iting professors in African anthropology from Europe, and setting up
a departmental library emphasizing Negro studies. Herskovits hoped
137
to ll the gap in research on Negroes and advance the eld of Negro
anthropology.
Depression-era budgetary constraints and a conservative university ad-

ministration delayed the fulllment of Herskovitss vision. During the
1930s Northwesterns administration sought to promote Northwestern
as a midwestern university of conservative character, with evident intent
to gain new resources from Chicago citizens who are not favorable to the
degree of experimentation seen at the University of Chicago.
In 1936
Herskovits told a professor who had just resigned, the University being
what it is, you know what a weight of tradition confronts a person who
wishes to do something that isnt just what has been done before!
Three years earlier Herskovits had complained to university president

Walter D. Scott that he could not oer a doctorate in the anthropology
program, despite the fact that the program in African anthropology was
receiving increasing recognition from the anthropological community.
At a time when he was the only anthropology professor at Northwestern,
Herskovits pushed for more anthropology courses, more anthropology
professors, and more money for research. Scott, however, vetoed Hers-
kovitss requests for funding for research and additional professors.
Nonetheless, Herskovits made progress. In 1929 he had convinced the

administration to rename the sociology department the Department of
Sociology and Anthropology. And in 1938 a separate anthropology de-
partment was set up at Northwestern with Herskovits as chair.
The
anthropology department, however, remained small for some time. Dur-
ing the early 1940s Herskovits and William Bascom were the only anthro-
pology instructors at Northwestern, and when Bascom entered wartime
service, Herskovits was the sole anthropology instructor in 194243.
Despite the nancial limitations, Herskovits began to create a subeld

in Negro anthropology during the 1930s. In 1931 he introduced a new
course called The Negro in Africa and America, which dealt with the
physical anthropology and culture of blacks in Africa and the Americas.
The course emphasized culture change due to contact between Euro-
peans and Africans.
Herskovitss methodological approach to Negro

studies was based on the cultural connections between Africa and the
Americas. An indication of Herskovitss unique approach and subject
matter was that there was no appropriate text available for the course. He
outlined the content of his course The Negro in Africa and America in
a chapter he wrote for The Handbook of Social Psychology, published in
138
1935.
By that time Herskovits was teaching a number of courses deal-

ing with race and blacks, including an introductory anthropology course
in which he sketch[ed] in broad strokes a picture of the main problems
of race, language, culture, and their interrelationships. Herskovits also
taught courses entitled Races of Man, General Ethnology, Primitive
Economics, Social Organization, Folklore, and Primitive Art.
Herskovitss egalitarianism led him to support increased opportuni-

ties for blacks in anthropology and in the social sciences in general. He
sought out black students in anthropology while at Columbia when he
was working on his physical anthropology study. In that project Hersko-
vits employed four assistants, all African Americans: Louis E. King,
Abram L. Harris, Zora Neale Hurston, and Greene Maxwell.
While
employed on the Herskovits study, King, Harris, and Hurston under-
took graduate study at Columbia University with funding by the univer-
sity.
Herskovits sought foundation funding and a scholarship from

Columbia for Maxwell, apparently without success.
He also recom-
mended foundation fellowships for black scholars at other universities,
including E. Franklin Frazier and Lorenzo Turner.
Throughout his career, Herskovits trained black students in anthro-

pology. His record seems to contradict St. Clair Drakes statement that
Herskovits avoided accepting black students for serious anthropologi-
cal training.
In 1929 Herskovits recommended Vivian Cameron, a

masters degree candidate in anthropology, for fellowships from the Ro-
senwald Fund and the General Education Board (geb) to pursue her
doctorate. Herskovits reminded the Rosenwald Fund of the nancial
diculties facing many black students. He maintained that Cameron,
whose thesis was a study of magic medical formulae of the American
Negro, would provide the Negro group [with] . . . an anthropologist
who, in addition to a background in the South and sympathy for her
problem, has the detachment and the intellectual qualities requisite to
scientic evaluation of material.
Cameron completed her masters

thesis, Folk Beliefs Pertaining to Health of the Southern Negro, in
1930.
Herskovitss rst black graduate student to obtain the Ph.D. at North-

western was Hugh H. Smythe. In December 1940 Herskovits strongly
recommended Smythe, who had been a student at Northwestern for two
years under a Rosenwald Fund fellowship, for a predoctoral fellowship
from the ssrc. Herskovits characterized Smythe as in the upper one per
139
cent of all students I have known so far as zeal for investigation, strong
on details with good critical ability.
In 1941 Smythe proposed to do

eldwork on the Black Caribs (those with African and Carib Indian
heritage, known today as the Garifuna) in Honduras. When Smythe was
denied a special entry permit required by the Honduran government for
black visitors, Herskovits interceded on Smythes behalf with a friend at
the U.S. State Department. After the intercession of the State Depart-
ment, Honduras agreed to issue the visa.
By this time, however, the

United Statess entrance into World War II prevented Smythe from un-
dertaking the eldwork. In 1945 Smythe completed a library disserta-
tion on the social organization of West African peoples.
Smythe later
taught at Brooklyn College for over twenty years and served as American
ambassador to Syria and Malta.
Another of Herskovitss black graduate students was Johnnetta B.

Cole, who took her graduate work at Northwestern during the 1950s
and 1960s. She decided to study with Herskovits based on the recom-
mendation of George E. Simpson, her cultural anthropology professor
at Oberlin College who had taken postdoctoral work with Herskovits at
Northwestern in 1936. Cole received an M.A. and a Ph.D. in anthropol-
ogy at Northwestern based on eldwork conducted in Liberia. She later
wrote of her teacher, Herskovits had two special places in his heart: one
for students who were African American, and another for students who
were women.
Herskovitss close attention to the work of his students was viewed

by some as meddling paternalism, by others as welcome assistance. As
one of Herskovitss students has observed, Herskovits was a strong
man, well known in anthropology, who single-handedly ran the de-
partment. He was on every graduate students committee. Herskovits
closely watched and supervised his students eldwork, having them mail
him copies of eld notes as often as once a week. [H]e and his wife in
many ways created the image of parents toward us as student-children,
remembered the same student.
Another student recalled how under

relentless pressure from Herskovits, which I appreciate in retrospect, I
nished my dissertation.
In this way Herskovits may have emulated

Boas, known as Papa Franz by some of his female students, who also
closely followed his students eldwork and research.
As a teacher of black studies based in an anthropological perspective,

Herskovits trained his students to go to the eld and disregard ethno-
140
centric evaluations of their subjects culture. As one student observed,
they went to the eld to understand another people.
Herskovits
mentored a number of anthropologists, including William R. Bas-
com, Joseph H. Greenberg, Alan P. Merriam, Erika Bourguignon, and
George E. Simpson, who helped shape the elds of African American
and African anthropology through the middle of the twentieth century.
In addition to his own anthropology students, Herskovits also inu-
enced historians, political scientists, and at least one choreographer and
dancer to focus on people of color as creators of culture. Toward that
end, he supported research that documented and disseminated the cre-
ative aspects of black cultures. He gave special eld training and pro-
moted the career of Katherine Dunham, who would achieve great pro-
fessional success as a dancer and choreographer.
In 1935 Herskovits
helped arrange a fellowship and eldwork for Dunham to travel to the
West Indies the following winter as a Rosenwald Foundation fellow.
With the fellowship, Dunham studied West Indian dance in Jamaica,
Trinidad, Guadeloupe, Martinique, and Haiti and incorporated dances
from those areas into her own choreography and performances.
Herskovitss musical talents sometimes permitted him to assist his

students in nontraditional ways. Following Dunhams return from her
1936 eld trip to the West Indies, Herskovits provided the percussion
in Dunhams performance of Haitian dance. A Chicago newspaper re-
corded the event:
The professor dropped to his knees. He brought the heel of his palm
down rhythmically upon the cowhide drumhead. With the drumstick
grasped in his other hand he beat a tatoo on the blue and white cylindri-
cal frame of the drum. The hunsi (priestess) began to dance.
Damballa, she murmured.
At the word the professor changed his tempo. The dancers shoulders
twitched in slow rhythm, gradually accelerating with the drum. The
selected audience drew in its breath.
This was the Haitian ceremonial dance to Damballa, voodoo snake-
spirit.
Herskovits helped Ralph Bunche get an ssrc fellowship to do post-

doctoral work in anthropology at Northwestern in 193637.
After
completing his dissertation on French colonial administration in West
Africa, which focused primarily on the bureaucrats, Bunche sought to
141
broaden his own training so he could better understand African cultures
and institutions. With Herskovitss help, Bunche undertook eld re-
search in 193637 in southern and eastern Africa, where he reversed his
dissertation focus and got the native point of view.
In the decade following the Second World War, when few northern
white universities employed black professors, Herskovits promoted the
hiring of black faculty members at Northwestern. In 1947 he pressed
Northwesterns president to hire African Americans by advising him that
other historically white colleges were increasingly doing so.
When the
dean of the school of education at Northwestern was looking for a man
in the eld of science education, Herskovits persuaded him to consider
hiring an African American and contacted Howard University historian
Rayford Logan for suggestions of candidates for the position. After
checking with the dean of the graduate school and a physics professor at
Howard, Logan advised Herskovits that they did not know any African
Americans who could meet the qualications for the position.
Herskovits also inuenced historians to focus on blacks as active

agents of historical change and challenge the prevailing view that during
slavery, blacks were docile accommodationists to the institution. Hers-
kovitss research on Suriname and Haiti revealed that Africans resisted
slavery in numerous ways. In Suriname African slaves escaped slavery
and established Maroon societies along the Suriname River during the
late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
In Haiti slaves escaped and

established Maroon societies in the highlands. They also rose up in revolt
many times from the sixteenth century to the successful uprising of the
late eighteenth century that ended slavery and established Haitian inde-
pendence.
Unlike other white scholars who knew of these events but

failed to see their relevance for American history, Herskovits proposed
that if slaves resisted their condition in the West Indies and South Amer-
ica, they also might have done so in North America.
Herskovits encouraged students and colleagues to analyze slavery in
the United States from the slaves perspective. In his classes at North-
western, he emphasized the strength of African cultures and the nu-
merous revolts which occurred wherever slavery obtained. He urged his
students to research black resistance to slavery in the antebellum South.
He also focused on African and New World Negro folktales and the use
of indirection by slaves as a way of covertly criticizing authority.
Hers-
kovits questioned the dominant view by historians of the docile Negro
142
slave, suggesting that his docility . . . was . . . a mask for a deeper-lying
restlessness.
Harvey Wish (190968), a social historian, wrote arti-

cles on slave revolts for the Journal of Negro History in Herskovitss semi-
nar on Negroes. Wishs essays, contravening the widely held view of the
slaves happy compliance to the institution, emphasized an ongoing cou-
rageous struggle for liberty.
In addition to Wishs work, the anthro-

pologists Raymond Bauer and Alice Bauer wrote an important essay,
Day to Day Resistance to Slavery, which emphasized everyday forms
of protest, especially malingering, in Herskovitss seminar.
In 1942
Herskovits passed along a paper by Felice Swados, medicine editor of
Time magazine, on the living conditions of Negroes during slavery to
the Bauers, for use in their essay.
Both the Bauers and Wish found

their interpretations of slave resistance supported by Herskovits.
Herskovits also advocated for Herbert Aptheker, who did ground-
breaking research on slave revolts. In November 1944 Herskovits recom-
mended Aptheker for a Guggenheim fellowship to study The American
Negro in the Second World War. In his recommendation, Herskovits
stated that Aptheker was one of the rst to understand the importance
of re-analysing historical materials so as to give us a comprehensive
understanding of the force of Negro discontent in ante bellum time, and
his book, American Negro Slave Revolts is a rst class contribution to
the eld. Aptheker received the fellowship, which he used to complete A
Documentary History of the Negro People in the United States.
During the
1930s and early 1940s the published work on slave revolts of Joseph C.
Carroll, the second black to receive a doctorate from Ohio State Univer-
sitys history department, Wish, and Aptheker challenged the then con-
ventional wisdom that slaves did not resist their bondage in any signi-
cant way.
Herskovitss inuence through the work of the Bauers, Aptheker, and

Wish helped inform John Hope Franklins interpretation of slavery in his
landmark history of African Americans, From Slavery to Freedom (1947).
Franklins emphasis on slave resistance and family strength in the face of
horric brutality was based in large part on the scholarship of the above-
mentioned scholars.
In addition to supporting research, Herskovits encouraged the foun-

dations and the learned societies to appoint black scholars to committees
that made funding recommendations. In 1928 he recommended that the
ssrcs Committee on Race Dierences add at least one black member,
143
maintaining that the appointment of a committee on Race without at
least one Negro is unwise. After Herskovits suggested biologist Ernest
E. Just or the psychologist and assistant superintendent of Washington
dc schools H. H. Long, Just was added to the committee that included a
white chair, Joseph Peterson, and three other white members.
Herskovitss use of his growing authority with the foundations to

advance the study of people of color, however, was mitigated by his
paternalism toward black scholars. At times, Herskovitss relations with
black scholars were marked by tension. Although he wanted to include
blacks in academia, he was usually unwilling to relinquish his dominant
position or support an activist agenda that would confront societal re-
strictions on black scholars. Herskovitss actions led some black scholars
to characterize him as a paternalist. Charles P. Henry has observed, As a
White expert on race relations, Herskovits was one of the objective
scholars private foundations relied on to endorse African American
scholars conducting research on Blacks elsewhere in the world.
Ralph
Bunche was one who sometimes saw a paternalist bent in Herskovits.
When Bunche was doing postdoctoral work in anthropology under
Herskovits at Northwestern in 1937, the two men became friends, often
socializing together. Bunche recorded in his diary that after he gave a
talk, The Mandate Togoland, Mel and Frances [Herskovits] drooled
all over meFrances stating that she and Mel would have to make me a
big man when I returnede.g., pres. of H[oward]. U[niversity].
In addition to his paternalism, Herskovitss strict adherence to his

own notion of objectivist, detached scholarship and his desire to direct
the eld of Negro studies brought him into conict with the leading
black scholar-activists of the time, Carter Woodson and W. E. B. Du
Bois. Herskovits accused Woodson and Du Bois of engaging in polemics
and falling short of scholarly standards of objectivity. Yet as John Hope
Franklin has commented, black scholars were obligated constantly to
challenge the notion of black inferiority.
Neither Du Bois nor Wood-

son shrank from challenging black inferiority as scholars and as activists.
But as blacks challenging black inferiority, they were often labeled pro-
pagandists whose objectivity was in question.
Thus black scholars like Du Bois and Woodson, who disputed the ac-
cepted race relations formula of knowledge-elites, were marginalized. As
John Staneld has argued, the prestige stratication of their [black
scholars] contributions is relative to how much their ideas and even per-
144
sonalities are accommodative to the historically specic racial caste rela-
tions within and external to their disciplines. We nd this to be the case in
how preWorld War II philanthropic foundation administrators, white
academic mentors, and elites in professional social sciences tended to
select or ignore black social scientists and evaluate their work.
When
Du Bois and Woodson strenuously attacked the Rockefeller Founda-
tions support for industrial education and white-dominated knowledge
production, they were marginalized as propagandists who lacked true
objectivity. Moreover, white knowledge-elites questioned Du Boiss
scholarship because of his political activism as editor of the naacps
journal, the Crisis.
The dierent intellectual perspectives of Woodson and Herskovits led
to great tension in their professional relationship. As John Hope Franklin
has observed, black scholars constantly faced the question of how to stay
calm and objective in the face of forces barring them from membership in
the mainstream of American scholarship and how to resist the tempta-
tion to pollute . . . scholarship with polemics.
Herskovits believed
that he had resolved the dilemma of scholarship and polemics by carefully
separating his scholarly research from his popular lectures and writing.
But as a white scholar, Herskovits did not suer the limitations placed on
black scholars, who were regularly denied access to southern archives and
excluded from teaching positions at white colleges. Woodson, however,
as the leader of a movement to popularize black history and rectify the
sins of omission and commission by white scholars and institutions,
sometimes combined his own scholarship with polemics. Gunnar Myr-
dal maintained that in Woodsons Journal of Negro History and the asnlh,
[p]ropagandistic activities go on side by side with the scholarly ones.
Myrdal understood the temptation to do so in view of the greater
distortion and falsication of the facts in the writings of white historians.
Nevertheless, Myrdal argued that Woodsons methods led to a denite
distortion in the emphasis and the perspective given the facts.
In
addition, as Jacqueline Goggin has observed, [b]y covering such a
broad range of the black experience, Woodson, and his readers, paid a
price, for he often was forced to overgeneralize, blurring distinctions of
place, time, and class. Similarly, Earlie Thorpe criticized Woodson for
failing to document the assertions in many of his books.
The question of who would undertake and control black studies also
contributed to the tension between Woodson and Herskovits. Both men
145
believed that there should be no color line when it came to black studies.
But Woodson, although he regularly included the writings of white
scholars in the Journal of Negro History and invited white scholars to
participate in the annual meetings of the asnlh, believed that black
scholars best did research on black life. He maintained that if the story
of the Negro is ever told it must be done by scientically trained Ne-
groes. Moreover, in pursuing the real history and the status of the
Negro . . . men of other races cannot function eciently because they do
not think black.
Woodson fought those who he believed were trying to undermine

black autonomy in politics and scholarship. He attacked Thomas Jesse
Jones, the white education director of the Phelps-Stokes Fund, a philan-
thropy concerned with black education, after Jones wrote in 1917 an
inuential report that convinced many foundations to support black
schools that emphasized vocational education and to withdraw from
schools that stressed liberal arts education. Following Woodsons criti-
cism of the report, Jones convinced many foundations, including the
Rosenwald Foundation, the Carnegie Corporation, and the geb, to ter-
minate foundation support for Woodsons association.
Woodson
viewed Joness actions as evidence of whites desire to control decisions
about black education. Woodson also refused to surrender autonomy
over the Journal of Negro History. He rejected the white philanthropies
recommendation that he aliate with a black college, leading to the
termination of any substantial foundation support after 1933. In politics,
Woodson reproved blacks who supported either major political party,
based on his belief that both were degenerate parties determined to
subordinate blacks. Furthermore, Woodson attacked blacks who joined
interracial organizations, calling them Uncle Toms and arguing that
since they refused to oppose whites, they were defenders of segrega-
tion.
Meanwhile, Herskovits, although sometimes expressing displeasure

with the racism of white institutions in America, did not question the
enhanced inuence he received as a result of his whiteness or the fact that
he was generally perceived as an unbiased observer. By contrast, the
historical profession marginalized Woodson, perceived by mainstream
scholars as biased due to his championing of black history.
Almost from the outset of Herskovitss professional career, his dif-
ferences with Woodson emerged. Herskovits considered Woodson a
146
propagandist, whose scholarship was often incomplete, amateurish,
and suused with polemics. Woodson thought Herskovits was another
white paternalist intent on controlling black studies. The tensions be-
tween Herskovits and Woodson dated from the negotiations during the
mid-1920s to nd a black anthropology student to assist Herskovits on
his anthropometry studies and to be trained in the discipline. In the
search for black research assistants, Herskovits and Boas sought Wood-
sons help, though ultimately Woodson provided no assistance in this
endeavor. Herskovits believed that the reason that Woodson stone-
walled on providing a researcher was that Woodson thinks to this day
my motive was to get what he terms a unky.
The exchange between

Woodson and Herskovits about a black research assistant marked the
beginning of a very turbulent relationship between the two scholars.
Herskovitss intellectual dierences with Woodson rst became evi-
dent when Woodson attacked Herskovitss biometric approach in his
study of the physical anthropology of African Americans. Each dis-
trusted the other. Herskovits, after being invited to speak at the 1929
asnlh meeting, wrote Boas characterizing Woodson as my old and
dear, but none too trusted friend and complained that it is always a
throw-up whether anything arranged by Woodson for me falls through
or not.
As if fullling Herskovitss fears, Woodson later wrote Hers-

kovits, I regret your topic does not harmonize with the leading thought
of the session at which it is possible for you to speak.
A notable dispute between the two scholars arose after the 1936 publi-
cation of Woodsons The African Background Outlined or Handbook for the
Study of the Negro.
Woodson wrote The African Background Outlined to

provide teachers and the general population a source for information
about Africa.
Woodsons book included two parts: the rst, a history

of Africa up to the colonial period; the second, a selected group of topics
on African American history with extensive annotated bibliographies.
Herskovitss response to Woodsons work suggests that the dierences

between the two men were personal as well as intellectual. Upon hearing
about the book, Herskovits told his friend Donald Young, I think it is
time somebody ought to take a crack at the imposing stucco facade of
this gent, and I am willing to do it. He asked Young to get him a copy of
the book, which he would review with a sledge hammer.
Herskovits
then proceeded to do just that, characterizing Woodsons work as spe-
cial pleading, lled with undocumented accusations, bibliographies
147
that show a strong anti-white prejudice, and an essential lack of objec-
tivity. Although Herskovits fully sympathize[d] with Dr. Woodsons
irritation at the treatment of the Negro by those who have misappropri-
ated the term scholar, this did not excuse careless scholarship, indul-
gence in loaded adjectives, and unwillingness to give credit where credit
is due.
For example, Herskovits criticized Woodsons discussion of

the conversion of African slaves to Christianity. He found Woodsons
assertion that the Christianization of the Negro was an easy task, a
much easier one for the Negro than for the European pagans, because
Christianity is an Oriental cult and the Negro has an Oriental mind, to
be spurious.
Although some of Herskovitss criticisms had merit, others were dis-

tortions. Herskovits viewed Woodsons characterization of African cul-
ture as predominantly monogamous, because [p]olygamy does not
obtain throughout Africa, as special pleading. According to Herskovits,
Woodsons argument was designed to place Africans in a positive light,
as polygamy was viewed negatively in the United States.
However,
Herskovitss characterization of Woodsons argument was misleading. In
his book, Woodson maintained that many Africans practiced monogamy
because they could not aord more than one wife. He did not claim that
polygamy was rare.
Woodsons response to Herskovitss review, published in the Journal of

Negro History, was equally tendentious.
Woodson noted that because

Herskovitss review contained so many misinterpretations and mis-
statements, he would deviate from his rule to ignore reviews of his
work.
Then he argued that because his book did not highly evaluate
the theories of social scientists . . . and because the book claims for the
Negro what the reviewer and most persons of his circle would deny as
justly belonging to the record of the Negro, Dr. Herskovits has branded
the work as lacking objectivity and charged with a strong anti-white
prejudice.
Woodson asserted that an anthropologist had no business

reviewing the work of a historian because anthropology deals in theo-
ries, while [h]istory deals with facts. Then, paralleling his attack on
Herskovitss 1928 book, The American Negro, Woodson challenged the
methods of physical anthropologists and, by implication, Herskovits:
The historian in this case is not much concerned with the accounts left
by those who have gone into Africa, noting the hair, and the color of the
148
native, and measuring his nose, his lips, and the projection of his jaw in
order to classify Africans as non-white, half white, and almost white.
Relations between Herskovits and Woodson did not improve. In July

1942 Herskovits complained to Woodson that Woodson had failed to
follow through on a promise made two years earlier to publish an article
in the Journal of Negro History by Herskovits student Joseph Greenberg.
Herskovits asked Woodson either to publish the paper or return it to
me immediately.
Although Herskovitss relationship with Du Bois was outwardly less

turbulent than with Woodson, it was also beset by conict. Herskovits
maligned the objectivity of Du Bois, most notably in the case of the
Encyclopedia of the Negro project. The debate surrounding the plan to
create an encyclopedia of the Negro during the 1930s and 1940s reveals
the tensions over the control and direction of black studies. Whites and
blacks, scholars and philanthropists, sought to advance their views of
the proper scope and nature of knowledge regarding people of African
descent.
Anson Phelps Stokes, the white president of the Phelps-Stokes Fund,
a small philanthropy established in 1911 and concerned with black edu-
cation in Africa and the United States, revived the idea of a Negro
encyclopedia in 1931. In 1909 Du Bois had unsuccessfully sought foun-
dation funding for an Encyclopedia Africana.
The Phelps-Stokes
Fund was a leading supporter of the interracial movement that emerged
in the aftermath of World War I and the attendant violence against black
civilians and soldiers. The main goal was to alleviate racial tensions and
violence, not to challenge segregation. The idea for the Committee on
Interracial Cooperation, formed in 1919, has been attributed to Thomas
Jesse Jones and Robert R. Moton, the black director of Tuskegee In-
stitute. Stokes justied the Negro encyclopedia by arguing that it would
contribute to the progress of the Negro and to the Interracial cause.
The encyclopedia would focus mainly on black Americans, with some

material devoted to Africa and other areas with signicant black popula-
tions. It would include interpretive and biographical articles designed to
illuminate black life in America.
From the outset the project was suused with controversy. The key
issues were white versus black control and inuence on the project, race-
bound denitions of objectivity, and the question of activist scholarship.
Twenty-two invitationsrelatively equally divided between blacks and
149
whitesto the initial meeting went to several presidents of black col-
leges, representatives of a number of philanthropiesincluding the
geb, the Rosenwald Foundation, and the Carnegie Corporationand
scholars concerned with African Americans. Five of the invitees were
associated with the Phelps-Stokes Fund. The fact that only ve of those
invited could be considered primarily scholars opened the project up to
the charge that objective scholarship was not of paramount importance.
Meanwhile, numerous scholars of the black experience were excluded,
including Herskovits, Locke, Frazier, and, most notably, Du Bois and
Woodson. The latter two, the most illustrious African American scholars
of the time, were excluded from the initial meeting because of opposi-
tion from Thomas Jesse Jones.
Both Woodson and Du Bois had op-

posed the inuence of Jones since his 1917 report recommending foun-
dation support of vocational education, not liberal arts education, for
blacks.
The exclusion of Woodson and Du Bois from the initial con-

ference was indicative of the desire of some whites to control the direc-
tion of the project and limit the inuence of strong advocates of black
control. The exclusion of Woodson, Du Bois, Herskovits, Frazier, and
Locke also pointed to the fact that most of the invitees were prominent
university or foundation administrators, not scholars.
At the rst meeting black participants, especially Walter White of the
naacp and Kelly Miller of Howard University, who were mied at the
absence of Du Bois and Woodson, induced the conferees to invite the
two scholars to the next meeting.
Despite his disgust at being ex-

cluded from the initial conference, Du Bois decided to attend because of
the importance of the project. Woodson, however, declined and pro-
ceeded to denounce the project as an attempt to undercut his own ency-
clopedia project. He was also angered by what he viewed as Thomas
Jesse Joness broader attempts to control research on Negroes.
Fairly
quickly, Du Bois assumed a prominent position within the project, oper-
ating as second in command to Stokes and winning the position as
editor, largely due to the strong support from the black members of the
board who would not even consider any other choice.
Almost immediately Du Bois became the center of controversy as the

white-controlled philanthropies and several white scholars expressed
doubts about his objectivity. In order to oset Du Boiss authority as edi-
tor, the board of directors of the project set up an advisory board domi-
nated by whites as a check on the projects, and particularly Du Boiss,
150
perceived propagandistic tendencies.
Herskovits received an appoint-

ment as one of the two representatives (folklorist Elsie Clews Parsons
was the other) of the nrc on the advisory board. Herskovits, who
apparently did not seek the appointment, was brought on board to
counter Du Bois and Stokes, who were perceived as not suciently
committed to detached scholarship. Waldo Leland of the acls ques-
tioned the project coordinators commitment to objectivity and ap-
plauded Herskovitss appointment as necessary to enforce a strong com-
mitment to objectivity.
As an adviser to the project, Herskovits encouraged black participa-

tion but discouraged black control. In April 1934 Herskovits suggested
that Leland appoint a black member as aclss advisory board member.
He told Leland, My own feeling is that competent Negroes, if they can
be found, should have as much a hand as possible in undertakings which
aect their group, although I do not mean that I believe that competent
Whites should not also be included. Herskovits recommended three
friends: two blacks, economist Abram Harris and poet Sterling Brown,
and one white, sociologist Donald Young.
Leland, however, resisted Herskovitss recommendation: I should be

glad to suggest the appointment of a Negro if he seemed to be the most
suitable representative of our interests, but the organization of the En-
cyclopaedia includes a very large Negro representation, as you know, and
I understand that one of the editors will be a Negro.
Leland did not

appoint any blacks to the advisory board.
Despite his support for black participation and his promise of coopera-
tion to Du Bois, Herskovits moved to undercut him.
As Du Bois was
marshalling written expressions of support for the encyclopedia from
prominent whites and blacks, Herskovits, who had strong reservations
about the project, began conspiring with his friend Donald Young of the
ssrc to undermine the project.
Herskovits and Young thought that

the board was too heavily weighted with individuals who did not have
the proper commitment to objective scholarship. In addition, Herskovits
believed that there was insucient information available at that time to
create an encyclopedia that would do justice to the subject. As a result, he
argued, the encyclopedia would be loaded with propaganda, consid-
ering . . . the people who are most active in it.
In making this accu-

sation, Herskovits particularly targeted Du Bois, noting that neither Du
Bois nor most members of the backing crew are scientists at all, but
151
uplifters.
Based on their reservations about the project, Herskovits

and Young skipped the May 1936 meeting of the advisory board.
In June 1936 Herskovits and Young hatched a plan to jointly resign

from the advisory board to protest the direction of the project.
They
tried to persuade Elsie Clews Parsons to join them in the hope that a
few resignations might bring about a realization that not everyone is in
agreement with the rather high-handed manner in which the thing is
being pushed through.
But Parsons was not convinced that Du Bois

was merely a propagandist and resisted the resignation plan. She said she
would rst discuss the issue with Stokes, an old friend, and if Herskovits
was right about Du Bois, then she would resign.
Apparently, Parsonss reticence put a stop to the resignation plan,

although discussions continued. In August 1936 Herskovits criticized
the project as unscientic, telling Parsons that it would in all likelihood
be loaded with the melioristic point of view of its backers. Herskovits
added that the advisory committees had no authority and could not
restrain the excesses of those in charge. He asserted that Du Bois lacked
the necessary detachment for [a] job such as editing an encyclopaedia,
even while giving him credit for all the ability and good intentions in the
world. Herskovits insisted that Du Bois, whom he misleadingly claimed
was over seventy (he was sixty-eight), was too old for the job. He also
charged, falsely, that Du Bois was chosen without any consultation with
anyone, either on the Advisory Board or the Board of Directors.
In
fact, the board of directors had elected Du Bois the editor.
E. Franklin Frazier and Ralph Bunche criticized the project along

similar lines as Herskovits. They questioned the large role played by
nonscholars and the foundations and the small number of scholars in-
volved in the planning. In addition, Frazier argued that the prospectus
had been created in a haphazard manner, reecting the absence of com-
petent scholars in the planning. Du Bois biographer David L. Lewis has
suggested that there was merit in this criticism and that Du Bois proba-
bly recognized the datedness, imprecision, and objectively indicting
incompleteness of the work he and his assistants, Irene Diggs and Ray-
ford Logan, had scrambled to assemble. This result was due to the lim-
its on time and funding within which Du Bois was operating. Frazier
also insisted that the planning and the execution of the Encyclopaedia
should devolve upon scholars and not upon interracial politicians or
statesmen, white or black. It is no task for big Negroes or whites
152
because of their good-will. He called for a new conference of compe-
tent scholars to rework the entire plan.
In fact, Fraziers views par-

tially mirrored those of Du Bois, who also preferred an encyclopedia
created by scholars and not by politicians. For Du Bois, however, the
two overriding goals were black editorial control and completion of the
encyclopedia.
The opposition to the encyclopedia under Du Boiss editorship by
young black and white scholars like Frazier, Bunche, Herskovits, and
Young was indicative of a generational rift. During the mid-1930s youn-
ger black scholars, including Frazier and Bunche, inuenced by the cata-
strophic impact of the Great Depression, employed a Marxist critique of
American capitalism as exploitative of both white and black workers. In
order to improve the lot of African Americans, they argued for an inter-
racial working-class alliance and rejected the older generations focus on
racial solidarity as misguided and romanticized. In 1936 Frazier attacked
Du Bois as only interested in the welfare of the privileged black middle
class. Moreover, Frazier rejected Du Boiss call for racial solidarity and
black nationalism.
Herskovits, like Frazier and Bunche, supported an

interracial working-class alliance. In a 1937 radio broadcast, Herskovits
asserted that more publicity should be given to attempts by the Com-
mittee for Industrial Organization and the Southern Tenant Farmers
unions to form working-class alliances between blacks and whites.
Realizing that Du Boiss elevation to editor in chief might alienate the

foundations, several white members of the board suggested that his
position be made dependent on his promise to work with a white associ-
ate editor. Charles T. Loram, conservative chair of the Department of
Race Relations at Yale University, maintained that because of Du Boiss
reputation . . . as a militant protagonist of certain ideas, a white associ-
ate editor was necessary to temper Du Boiss objectives. Despite the
opposition of some of the black members to this view, notably Mordecai
Johnson, president of Howard University, the board appointed white
sociologist Robert Park associate editor.
In 1938, after Parks resig-

nationdue to age, he was seventy-fourwhite sociologist Guy B.
Johnson was elected to replace him as co-editor of the encyclopedia.
Stokes maintained that Johnson lled the need for a younger man to
work with Du Bois, that Johnson had the support of the black and white
board members, including Du Bois, and that the board concurred that
he [Johnson] was the best qualied man in the country to serve in
153
this position.
Herskovits approved of the choice of Johnson to be

co-editor.
While Herskovits insisted that only he and Young were concerned that
the encyclopedia project was awed by an uplifter mentality, the philan-
thropic foundations being asked to nance the project voiced similar
worries. During 193435 the projects funding requests faced strong
opposition from the Carnegie Corporation and the geb.
Jackson
Davis of the geb questioned Du Boiss commitment to objectivity. He
also argued that the encyclopedia project would be viewed by most
southern whites as an aggressive push for rights, would lead to increased
race consciousness by blacks, and thus would adversely aect race rela-
tions. Echoing Herskovitss views, the geb maintained that there was
not enough scholarship on Negroes to justify an encyclopedia, and as Du
Boiss writings had been included in the Dictionary of American Biography
and the Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, a special Negro encyclopedia
was unnecessary. In April 1934 the geb denied the encyclopedia projects
request for funding.
Under the leadership of President Frederick Keppel, the Carnegie

Corporation also refused to nance the project. Conicts between the
conferees on the project along racial lines and the foundations experi-
ence of cost overruns with the previously funded Encyclopedia of the Social
Sciences set Keppel against the project.
Moreover, Alvin Johnson, asso-

ciate editor of the Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, convinced Keppel that
there was not enough material on Negroes to justify an encyclopedia.
Johnson told Keppel, These projected four volumes of mediocre detail
seem to me an incredible malversation of white paper.
These denials
of funding demonstrate the desire of the white-controlled foundations
to circumscribe the permissible bounds of knowledge. According to
white arbiters of legitimate scholarship, a Negro encyclopedia would
be inammatory, inferior, inappropriate, incomplete, and insignicant.
In view of foundation opposition and the continuing depression, the
encyclopedia board decided to postpone future funding requests pend-
ing more preliminary work.
Despite the setback, Du Bois and Stokes continued to move forward

with the project, hoping eventually to reverse the foundations funding
decisions. By 1939 Du Bois had learned of Herskovitss reservations
about the project and tried to reassure Herskovits of his intentions to be
fair-minded. Du Bois told Herskovits, I can assure you that . . . a proper
154
balance will be maintained between the claims of philanthropy on the
one hand and the scientic demands of sociology and anthropology. Du
Bois, however, maintained that the job of editing an encyclopedia re-
quired that the editorial sta be responsible for the practical editing. . . .
No work of the sort can be carried on its essential details by a committee
and upon this I am going to insist.
Herskovits replied that he was

pleased that Stokes would be consulted and that he only wanted to be
consulted on who would be writing anthropology articles.
Nevertheless, Herskovits continued to criticize the project. In 1940 he

told Du Bois that anthropological material was being neglected, many
important studies were being ignored, and irrelevant topics were being
included. Herskovits could not understand how the Suriname Maroons
were excluded and an article on Borneo, which had no connection with
Negroes, was included. Herskovits was particularly agitated to nd no
mention of Franz Boas; Elsie Clews Parsons, the outstanding authority
on Negro Folklore; or T. Wingate Todd, who has studied the Negro
physical type more carefully than anyone else. Herskovits told Du Bois,
disingenuously, that the only reason why he had not resigned from
the advisory Committee and recommended that the organization I rep-
resent, the National Research Council, withdraw from sponsorship, is
my personal condence in you. He then advised Du Bois to make sure
that certain previously discussed changes in administration were made so
that the scientic point of view will be given due attention.
Ironically, in December 1939, when Herskovits was proposed as a

possible member of the Encyclopedia projects board of directors, he
was criticized as lacking the proper objectivity for the position. Two
members had recently died, one white (Joel Spingarn) and one black
(Benjamin Brawley), and as replacements were to be selected by race, a
new white member was needed. When Herskovitss name was intro-
duced, C. T. Loram raised . . . the question whether the label, pro-
Negro was not so denitely pinned upon Prof. Herskovits that the
suspicion might be created in some circles that the Encyclopedia might
be lacking in that objectivity which the Committee considers one of
its principal aims. Lorams comment underscores the degree to which
egalitarian scholars of black studies, even those like Herskovits who
eschewed activism and toed a strict line of detached scholarship, faced
questions about their objectivity. Responding to Lorams statement, an
unnamed board member suggested that Herskovitss perspective could
155
be balanced by selecting another nominee who had a dierent point of
view. Mordecai Johnson disagreed, asserting that a pro-Negro designa-
tion should be regarded as a recommendation and not an objection,
noting that no book could be written without bias. Du Bois reminded
the board that the question of bias has been frequently raised in connec-
tion with the writings on anthropology by and about Jews, correspond-
ing to the current discussion over bias regarding writings by and about
Negroes.
Du Boiss comment may have been a veiled suggestion that

Lorams opposition to Herskovits was based on anti-Semitism. Stokes
then insisted that Herskovitss election to the ssrc proved that his objec-
tivity was not in question. (Whether Herskovits was elected to the ssrc
for his objectivity or for his connections is debatable. His close friend
Donald Young was a key ocial at the ssrc.) Evidently, Stokess argu-
ment proved persuasive, as Herskovits was nominated.
Along with
Herskovits, anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski was nominated to the
board with the idea that his views would balance those of Herskovits.
Herskovits, however, declined the nomination to the board, maintain-

ing that his preference was to remain on the advisory board.
Hers-
kovitss response accords with his reservations about the encyclopedia.
Malinowski and black anthropologist Allison Davis did accept their
nominations.
Meanwhile, Herskovits acted to derail eorts by the encyclopedia

board to move the project forward. When Madison Bentley of the Li-
brary of Congress, who had been approached about doing some editing
for the encyclopedia through the Writers Project of the Works Progress
Administration (wpa), asked Herskovits for his impressions, Hersko-
vits criticized the project at length. He advised Bentley that the editors of
the encyclopedia were incompetent to deal with the African material. He
also questioned the evenhandedness of the editors, arguing that the
topics selected for articles indicated that the encyclopedia would be un-
representative of the various points of view concerning the study of the
Negro and Negro problems and thus would fall short of an objective
rendering.
In 1941 the geb and the Carnegie Corporation declined Stokess re-
quest for $16,000 each to get the encyclopedia started by working
through the Writers Project. Charles Dollard of the Carnegie Corpora-
tion told Stokes that the Myrdal study took all funding in the Negro
eld.
Moreover, Dollard contended that Du Bois was a jealous, self-

156
centered person and therefore was unt to be editor. Dollard also
thought Du Bois was too old, at over seventy-one, to start on a multiyear
project.
Although there is no other direct record of additional correspondence

by Herskovits on the subject, other evidence indicates that he continued
to work to undermine the project. In 1951 black historian Rayford Logan
recorded in his journal a conversation that took place at a luncheon that
he attended with Herskovits, Ray Billington, Richard Leopold, Joseph
Greenberg, and Edgar T. Thompson, editor of Race Relations and the Race
Problem. Logan wrote, In the course of the conversation Mel [Hersko-
vits] brought up the question of the Encyclopedia of the Negro. I re-
marked to Mel that he did not know the history of previous eorts. Oh
yes, I do, said Mel. I was the hatchet man, dont you remember? I
pretended to remember. But I learned then for the rst time who had
killed the project just when we (Dr. Du Bois and I) felt certain that the
Carnegie Foundation [sic] was going to give the project $150,000.
Herskovitss comment to Logan indicated that he believed Logan would

have opposed the project as he and some of the other younger black
intellectuals did. But while Bunche and Frazier opposed the project,
Logan supported it. Moreover, Logan had assisted Du Bois on the proj-
ect.
Either Herskovits was unaware of this fact, which seems unlikely,

or he was demonstrating his arrogance.
His boasting notwithstanding, Herskovits was just one of many indi-
viduals and organizations who contributed to the demise of the encyclo-
pedia project. (The combined eorts of key gures at the Carnegie Cor-
poration and the geb, along with the opposition of Herskovits and
Young, represented the dominant positions regarding the question of
objective scholarship and academic control with respect to Negro stud-
ies.) Herskovitss characterization of an encyclopedia edited by Du Bois
as propagandistic and unscientic paralleled the position taken by the
Carnegie Corporation and the geb in denying funding. The philanthro-
pies had concluded that the project under Du Boiss editorship would be
an exercise in propaganda, not science. A project of this importance
would not be funded if a black scholar-activist led it. During this period
major studies related to African Americans were funded only when white
scholars controlled them. Rayford Logan later recalled that in those days,
the word of one white man could determine whether a project concern-
ing Negroes could be approved or not.
The Carnegie Corporations

157
study of African Americans did not even consider a black director; Swed-
ish economist Gunnar Myrdal led it.
Throughout the 1930s Herskovits continued to embrace the non-
activist position in Negro studies. When the Carnegie Corporation de-
cided to fund a large-scale study of American Negroes, Herskovits
sought to inuence the study to focus on Negro culture and eschew a
meliorist perspective. The Carnegie Corporation, however, dened the
Negro study as a problem-solving study and turned to Myrdal, who
embraced the idea of social engineering, to direct it.
Herskovits rejected the idea that change could be accomplished

through social engineering. He believed that social change could not be
forced unless this change was in line with economic and historical forces.
In February 1944 Herskovits argued, the actions of great men [and
women] are only eective if they are in line with the traditions of their
society at a given time. He insisted that the woman surage movement
did not succeed because of the agitation of the small group who led the
surage movement after the turn of this century. Rather, the develop-
ment of industrialization made womens restricted role outmoded and led
to the successful movement for surage.
Thus change comes only

when a culture is ready for it, rendering social engineering futile.
When Herskovits realized that his own research and notions of de-
tached social science would play only a peripheral role in the Carnegie
study, he sought to form an organization to inuence black studies to-
ward a purely scholarly agenda grounded in objectivity. He found sup-
port within the acls, which was nanced by the Rockefeller Founda-
tion, for his perspective. In 1939 Herskovits received acls approval to
sponsor and nance a conference on Negro studies that would form a
permanent committee to promote interdisciplinary Negro studies. Hers-
kovits hoped that the conference would place scholars of Negro studies
in a much more strategic position to encourage the continuation of
scientic work . . . if we are organized and ready prior to the appearance
of the [Carnegie-Myrdal] report.
In setting up the conference on Negro studies, Herskovits invited only

scholars of Negro studies, not foundation ocials, politicians, or social
activists.
In this way, he distinguished his conference from the initial

Encyclopedia of the Negro project meeting. Herskovits sent invitations
to a mixed group of black and white scholars including political scien-
tist Ralph Bunche; anthropologists Elsie Clews Parsons, W. Montague
158
Cobb, Lorenzo Turner, and George Simpson; philosopher Alain Locke;
economists Abram Harris and Gunnar Myrdal; historians Lawrence D.
Reddick, Harvey Wish, and Herbert Aptheker; and sociologists Donald
Young, Charles S. Johnson, and E. Franklin Frazier.
In January 1940
Herskovits suggested inviting Carter Woodson, commenting, He will
not make the Conference any easier, but he has worked long faithfully at
the problems of Negro history and I think he ought to be included.
Despite his willingness to invite Woodson, Herskovits excluded Du Bois.

Given his recent criticism of Du Bois and the encyclopedia project as
falling short of objective scholarship, this is not surprising.
A number of invitees, including Myrdal, Woodson, Parsons, and
Young, did not attend.
Woodson told Herskovits that he could not

attend the conference due to previous engagements, noting, At that
time I shall probably be thousands of miles away from Washington.
Woodsons biographer has held that Woodsons refusal to attend was

based on his belief that Herskovits controlled the conference and would
dominate any committee that was formed.
Myrdal also refused to attend the conference because of his intellectual

dierences with Herskovits.
Myrdal believed that this conference

would detract from the Carnegie study. He told Bunche that we should
steer clear of this before we know more about it. I am not at all interested
in having our study, or parts of it, discussed, particularly if we are not
ourselves in control of the setting.
As it turned out, Bunche did

attend, but the Myrdal study was not discussed, perhaps because Bunche
had heeded Myrdals admonition and steered the conversation away
from that subject.
The initial conference on Negro studies, held in March 1940 in Wash-

ington dc with Herskovits presiding, decided to form a permanent
Committee on Negro Studies (cons) under the auspices of the acls.
Herskovits was named chair. Donald Young and up to ve other mem-
bers would serve on the committee.
In setting up an alternative to the Carnegie Corporation study, Hers-

kovits held to his view that scholarship could be pursued in a climate
divorced from politics. Although as chair of the cons Herskovits acted
to advance research in black studies, his strict adherence to detached
scholarship sidetracked activism by members of the committee, who
sought to challenge the exclusion of black scholars from southern ar-
159
chives and libraries. By taking this position, Herskovits undercut his
own egalitarian values that motivated his work in anthropology.
The committees largest and most signicant project for the advance-
ment of research in black history was the microlming of nineteenth-
century black newspapers and magazines, initially proposed by historian
Lawrence D. Reddick in 1944.
To head the project, the committee

hired Armistead Pride, director of the School of Journalism at Lincoln
University (the rst journalism school at a black college) and the rst
black journalist to serve as city editor of a white newspaper.
Following
a request prepared by Herskovits, in October 1945 the geb contributed
$9,000 to the cons to pay for microlming and donation of microlm
copies to several black collegesHoward, Atlanta, Lincoln, Dillard
and the Schomburg Center of the New York Public Library.
The
project was completed in 1947.
The accessibility of these pre-1900

black newspapers revolutionized research into Afro-American history
for just about every topic except slavery and opened important windows
on the activities and thought of black Americans.
In 1949 the com-

mittee authorized Pride to resume the microlming project, with a focus
on twentieth-century black newspapers, using funds received from the
sale of microlm copies.
In 1945 the cons and the Joint-Committee on Latin American Studies

undertook a project to create a bibliography for Latin American Ne-
gro studies with funding from the Rosenwald Fund. Herskovits served
as general project director, and Howard University archivist Dorothy
Porter served as editor.
The committee also supported publication of

monographs dealing with black studies, notably Eric Williamss Capital-
ism and Slavery (1944).
At Herskovitss behest, the committee decided to support the publica-

tion of reports on documents and research problems to help advance
Negro studies. The rst number in the series, A Guide to Documents in the
National Archives: For Negro Studies, compiled by Paul Lewinson, was
published in 1947.
The committee also arranged for Ernst Posner of

American University to supervise a graduate students preparation of an
experimental pilot project, a calendar of Negro materials in a single
Record Group in the National Archives. The committee distributed this
calendar to several colleges that were asked to consider doing similar cal-
endars of their own collections.
On the recommendation of Eric Wil-

160
liams, the committee considered a project to microlm historical docu-
ments in the West Indies that were in danger of loss and destruction.
While advancing research in black studies, Herskovits maintained

control over the committees activities and used his power to curtail
activism based on his strict adherence to detached scholarship. During
the initial conference, historians Herbert Aptheker and Lawrence D.
Reddick suggested that the conferees take a stand against the limitations
placed on black scholars doing research in the South.
The records of
the conference indicate that Herskovits spoke next and changed the
subject. No more mention of this topic was made.
Aptheker recently
stated that he did not remember Herskovitss reaction to this issue but
was sure Herskovits would not have opposed proper action.
A sum-
mary report of this conference issued the following year concluded that
the cons could aid in making possible greater facilities for Negro stu-
dents by breaking down or circumventing social barriers that make their
work dicult.
Nonetheless, the recommendations designed to assist

black researchers in the South were never carried out and did not enjoy
Herskovitss stated support.
In July 1940 Reddick published an article calling for bringing court
cases against tax-supported libraries that excluded blacks. He also chal-
lenged the acls and the ssrc to support his recommendation that any
grants-in-aid which may come from the Federal Government or from the
Foundations should carry the proviso that Negro scholars shall have
access to the materials.
Apparently the two learned societies did not

respond to Reddicks challenge.
At the 1944 committee meeting, Herskovits again took the lead in
opposing an activist agenda. He maintained that the dierence between
scholarly studies and programs of action was so profound that it would
not be practicable to operate a committee which would have to cover
both kinds of work. Historian James F. King, though accepting the
principle that the work of the present Committee was not to be a pro-
gram of action in such matters as racial relations, pointed out that schol-
arly work has often had an indirect inuence on programs of action and
on popular attitudes.
Once again, action was stopped.

The committees decisions on membership demonstrate Herskovitss
use of power in attempting to control the direction of Negro studies and
advancing research while resisting increased black inuence and calls for
action. Young and Herskovits chose the initial members of the commit-
161
tee: black English professor Sterling Brown, white psychologist Otto
Klineberg, white Latin Americanist Richard Pattee, black historian Law-
rence D. Reddick, and black anthropologist Lorenzo Turner.
This
meant that there would be four whites and three blacks. Herskovits
claimed that he included Sterling Brown on the committee instead of
Ralph Bunche or Abram Harris because he wanted someone versed in
literature and music.
Given the intensity of disagreement over African

cultural survivals between Herskovits and Harris at the initial confer-
ence, it may be that Herskovits wanted to exclude those whom he might
nd dicult to control. Moreover, in choosing Reddick, who completed
his Ph.D. in 1939, to serve on the committee, Herskovits selected a
junior historian.
He did not suggest senior black scholars like Du Bois

or Woodson, who would be more likely to resist his control. Herskovits
also sought to consolidate his control of the committee. In order to
avoid an institutional tie-in with Howard and perhaps limit the inu-
ence of Howard University scholars, he suggested holding the commit-
tee meeting at the acls oce instead of at Howard.
In addition,
Herskovits tried to dictate the direction of discussion, telling Daugherty
of the acls in May 1941, I am sure that I will have no diculty keeping
the discussion more or less to the line I have indicated.
Herskovitss imperious ways did not go unnoticed by some black

scholars, who sought to curtail his authority over black studies. The
tensions over Herskovitss role as chair of the cons came to a head
during the planning for an international conference on Negro studies in
Cuba. Rayford Logan was on the advisory committee to the Oce of the
Coordinator of Inter-American Aairs (ociaa), headed by Nelson
Rockefeller of the Department of State, which was funding the con-
ference.
Kenneth Janken has observed that Herskovitss [authori-

tarian] reputation was the reason Logan had the conferences project
authorization amended to oblige the organizers to consult with him,
especially on the matter of delegates.
The State Departments ap-

proval of funding stipulated that the acls obtain the approval of the
Coordinator or his duly authorized representative [Rayford Logan], to
select the personnel of the conference.
Logan told John Clark of the

ociaa of his opposition to the Mel Herskovits gang based on his belief
that the delegates to the Havana (changed to Port-au-Prince) con-
ference were Herskovitss hand-picked friends.

162
Logans assertion that Herskovits picked his friends is backed up by
the aclss choices to attend the conference, essentially the members of
the cons who had been chosen by Herskovits. The American delegates
to the conference were to be Herskovits, Klineberg, Sterling Brown,
Richard Pattee, Lawrence D. Reddick, Lorenzo Turner, Donald Young,
D. H. Daugherty, and musicologist Charles Seeger. There would be
six white delegates and three black delegates, all of whom were, as Logan
claimed, members of the cons and/or friends of Herskovitss.
Logan complained to the acls that the foundations and learned soci-
eties selection practices continued to minimize black input. At a meeting
with the acls, Du Boiswho had been brought by Loganpointed
out that in the old days Negroes were not even consulted on Negro
questions. Now, white people usually relied upon some white person or
some Negro to advise them. In this instance, that person seemed to be
Herskovits who was packing committees with his personal friends.
Logan told Clark of the ociaa, It is dicult to understand, for example,

how Dr. W. E. B. Du Bois has been consistently ignored by this commit-
tee. Logan recommended that the conference selections be changed.
Although the acls agreed to Logans attendance at the conference,

they rejected Du Boiss participation. Echoing their reasoning in the
encyclopedia project, the acls argued that the conference was designed
to support a scientic approach to Negro studies and that we had not
considered it necessary to represent groups or factions, but only to se-
cure the attendance of scholars whose interest was scientic and who
would be particularly useful for the purposes of the Conference. After
he was informed of Lelands responses, Logan took the matter up with
Nelson Rockefeller, who told Leland that he wanted Du Bois to be
invited to the conference.
Logans experience with the cons increased his resentment of what he

viewed as Herskovitss authoritarian manner. In 1943 Hugh Smythe, a
graduate student under Herskovits at Northwestern, asked Logan for his
help in getting the support of the ociaa to override roadblocks created
by Honduras that Smythe was facing as a black scholar planning anthro-
pological eldwork in that country. After advising Smythe that he did
not have any authority in that area, Logan told Smythe that Herskovits,
who has appointed himself the nal arbiter on all matters pertaining to
Negro scholarship, could assist you in a much larger measure than I can.
In fact, his animosity against methe initial reasons for which I do not
163
knoware such that you would do well not to let him know that you
have ever known me.
Herskovitss decisions on membership in the cons generally limited

black participation in order to maintain control and suppress activism.
From 1944 to 1947 Herskovits and acls ocials controlled membership
decisions and ensured a white majority. In 1944 Pattee and Klineberg
were dropped from the committee because they were undertaking work
outside the United States and would be unable to attend meetings. Hers-
kovits resisted adding a black scholar and creating a black majority. In-
stead, he recommended James F. King, the white managing editor of the
Hispanic American Historical Review, who was moving to the University
of California at Berkeley after two years at Northwestern, and Kenneth
W. Porter of Vassar College, a white historian of blacks in the American
West and relations between blacks and American Indians. Despite the
large number of prominent black scholars available, none were chosen.
Rayford Logan, who had recently published The Diplomatic Relations of
the United States with Haiti, 17761891 (1941), was apparently not even
considered.
At one point acls ocial Daugherty suggested a black

replacement, telling Herskovits, with you to ride herd . . . a black
balance might be a good one. Herskovits, however, resisted Daughertys
arguments and continued to support King to replace Pattee, explaining,
I would be perfectly willing to put a Negro historian on, but we have
one in Reddick, and there isnt another of his stature or Kings that I
know anything about. So thats that.
In fact, there were many black historians of Reddicks or Kings stature

who were known to Herskovits. Besides Du Bois, Woodson, and Logan,
black historians who had published important works by 1944 included
Lorenzo Greene, The Negro Wage Earner (1930); John Hope Franklin,
The Free Negro in North Carolina, 17901860 (1943); Charles Wesley, Ne-
gro Labor in the United States, 18501925 (1927); and A. A. Taylor, The
Negro in South Carolina during the Reconstruction (1924) and The Negro in
the Reconstruction of Virginia (1926).
Although Herskovits knew of

most of these black historians, they were not his friends.
As a result, he
may not have considered them for membership. The calculations made
by Herskovits and his white friends at the acls in recruiting black schol-
ars for membership may be illuminated by a questionnaire lled out in
jest by Donald Goodchild and sent to Herskovits. Under the heading
164
Principal eld of interest in Negro Studies, Goodchild wrote, How to
avoid oending them.
Herskovits also opposed black anthropologist Allison Davis of the

University of Chicago for membership on the committee.
Herskovits
explained, I hear he is very dicult to work with as a member of a
committee, and I feel that in his approach to Negro studies he stumbles
over so many complexes that it would be very dicult for us to work
with him.
Herskovits used his inuence to add two white scholars, King and
Porter, to the committee. Apparently, King was added to the committee
without a vote of the membership. In fact, no discussion of the member-
ship change was recorded in the minutes of the meeting.
Herskovits
met separately with Daugherty, Young, Goodchild, and Brown to gain
strong support for Porters membership before the ocial meeting in
which Porter was added. Thus Herskovits prevented a black majority by
ensuring that four white members and one black membernot the full
committeemade the membership decision. In this way the dicult
Davis was excluded from the committee.
In 1947 the membership question became more conicted with the

deterioration of black-white relations on the committee. Herskovits be-
gan to express irritation with some of the black members of the com-
mitteeTurner, Brown, and Reddickfor inactivity and lack of respon-
siveness to memos.
Meanwhile, race-based voting on new members

developed as blacks argued for more black representation. When Hers-
kovits got his white friend political scientist Paul Lewinson nominated
for membership, none of the black members supported him, while all the
whites did. Porter and Young approved of Lewinson, while Turner and
Brown did not mail in their ballots. Reddick abstained, arguing that
there should be more black representation. Herskovits claimed to be
sympathetic to increasing black membership but did not press the point,
noting Donald Youngs opposition to considering race as a criterion for
membership.
Once again, the white majority continued, as Lewinson

was added to the committee.
In 1948 black-white relations continued to deteriorate, leading Hers-

kovits and Daugherty to consider disbanding the committee. They de-
cided not to do so. Daugherty was convinced that killing the commit-
tee would probably have created misunderstanding and some ill will.
Herskovits agreed to add black historian Eric Williams to replace Porter,
165
due to the expense of bringing Porter in from Texas.
In 1949 Armi-
stead Pride replaced Turner.
The committee membership now con-

sisted of Herskovits, Brown, Lewinson, Reddick, Williams, Young, and
Pride, with Daugherty as secretary.
Despite the presence of a black

majority in 1948 and 1949, the major decisions of the committee con-
tinued to be made by Herskovits and his white associates.
The contentiousness over membership and the committees role in

fostering black scholars integration into the academic community nally
led to the dissolution of the cons. In 1946 planning began for a con-
ference entitled The Negro and the Community of Scholars. It would
examine the extent to which Negro scholars were publishing in white
journals, participating in white associations, and gaining access to archi-
val material in libraries. Daugherty told Herskovits that Sterling Brown
was somewhat unclear if he wants to go all the way on this agenda.
After some initial enthusiasm for the conference, Herskovits expressed

misgivings about the themes. He now wanted the conference to exclude
any discussion of black scholars access to archives, academic associa-
tions, and journals. Herskovits later concluded that he could not quite
see what our Committee could do in integrating the Negro scholar in the
general community. Indeed, Herskovits suggested that the committee
cancel the conference. Meanwhile, Reddick argued against canceling the
conference in a long letter to Daugherty.
At the committees nal meeting in March 1950, the conference was

canceled, and the committee agreed to its own dissolution. After the
meeting Herskovits wrote Daugherty that certainly the fact that we
were able to talk over procedures the night before made it possible for us
to vote with a sureness that would otherwise not have been possible.
Thus Herskovits and Daugherty disregarded Reddicks opposition and
acted to cancel the conference and stop the committee from taking
an active stance in integrating blacks into the white-controlled aca-
demic community.
To forestall action by the committee against the

limitations on black scholars, Daugherty and Herskovits ensured the
committees demise. Daugherty reported that the issues handled by the
committee would probably be handled by other acls committees.
Herskovits later wrote that the committees composition had under-

mined its chances of doing a proper job, a job that did not include ad-
dressing the limits placed on black scholars.
According to Daugherty,
the committees dissolution was based on the notion that Negro studies
166
should more properly be integrated into general studies. Negro music
would be dealt with in the general Committee on Musicology, and no
special committee on Negroes was needed to reinforce Negro studies.
Daugherty continued, Ideally, Negro history is history, Negro music is
music.
These other committees, however, had little or, in most cases,

no black representation, and therefore controversial issues like restric-
tions on black scholars would be ignored. As Robert L. Harris Jr. has
pointed out, it is ironic that while Herskovits and Daugherty had acted to
avoid the question of the integration of black scholars in the mainstream
academic community, they now justied the committees dissolution on
the grounds that Negro studies should be integrated into general stud-
ies.
In August 1950 Charles Odegaard, executive director of the acls,

announced that the acls Board of Directors had terminated the cons in
accordance with Herskovitss recommendation.
Herskovitss role in the development of Negro studies underscores the

complexity of his inuence. Believing in the rightness of his position, he
uninchingly held to his embrace of objective, detached scholarship. His
professional authority as an objective scholar strengthened his attacks on
racist and culturalist scholarship. At the same time, his professional sta-
tus permitted him to develop black studies in a way that emphasized
blacks as active agents in creating their own cultures. But by upholding a
strict notion of detached scholarship that rejected social activism and in
his desire to control the direction of black studies, Herskovits reinforced
the status quo.
Herskovitss views and actions in the Encyclopedia of the Negro proj-
ect demonstrate the paternalistic role he played in attempting to control
black studies and imprint his own vision on the discipline. By doing
so, Herskovits tended to limit the parameters of Negro studies by con-
forming to a denition of objectivity that marginalized black scholar/
activists, in this case Du Bois. Du Bois had resolved the dilemma of black
scholars by challenging black inferiority through his protest politics
and his scholarly publications. But, as a result, he was often labeled a
propagandist.
Herskovitss insistence that scholars separate politics from scholarship
denied the political nature of scholarly inquiry. During the 1930s, more-
over, the academic world was suused with racial politics. The profes-
sionalization of social science limited access, and in a society that ac-
cepted a racial hierarchy, blacks were often denied entrance to the world
167
of knowledge-elites.
Few blacks had access to the Ph.D., and fewer

still obtained positions at northern universities. Almost none were em-
ployed as professors at the major research universities. James McKee has
pointed out that black scholars like Charles S. Johnson and E. Franklin
Frazier had to accommodate to the prevailing sociological perspective
that had been created by white sociologists. When black scholars devi-
ated from the accepted perspective, as they sometimes did, the profes-
sion ignored them.
When Du Bois embraced activism in the form of

social protest, he was labeled a propagandist and thus marginalized. In
this way, Herskovits and the foundations criticized Du Bois as falling
short of objectivity and undermined the encyclopedia project.
Thus, in his advisory role for the Encyclopedia of the Negro project
and especially as chair of the cons, Herskovits sometimes impeded ef-
forts to challenge the isolation of black scholars and black scholarship. In
this connection, Kenneth Janken has observed that Herskovits . . . did
little to integrate African-American scholars into the mainstream.
Tragically, Herskovitss notions about detached scholarship served to

undercut his own egalitarianism by curtailing eorts to break down
racist barriers to black scholars. Yet in his promotion of black studies and
his support for black scholars research, Herskovits helped build the
groundwork for a more inclusive and egalitarian social science.
169
chapter six
The Postwar Expansion of
African Studies
War, blessed war, had come to my generation, and nothing ever would be the
same.Alfred Kazin
A
merica s involvement in the Second World War and its
emergence as a global power during the 1940s and 1950s trans-
formed academic social science. The exigencies of war and the
governments need for foreign area experts convinced many social scien-
tists, including Herskovits, to relinquish their earlier commitment to
detached scholarship and serve their country. At the same time, Ameri-
can involvement in the Second World War and the Cold War necessi-
tated the creation of area studies programsinitially nanced by the
major philanthropic foundationsto provide additional specialists so
that the United States could implement policies to serve its worldwide
interests. These developments provided Herskovits with the opportu-
nity to promote the creation of African studies programs in the United
States. Yet the foundations interest in African studies induced Hersko-
vits to curtail his study of African American cultures. Indeed, the anthro-
pologist did no eldwork in the Americas after World War II.
During the postwar era Herskovits succeeded in parlaying the in-
creased attention to Africa into substantial gains for African studies. His
expertise and interest in the expansion of African studies made him a key
player in the development of foundation-backed African studies pro-
grams. By 1948 Herskovits had established the rst major interdisciplin-
ary African studies program in America. In 1957 he played a pivotal role
in the establishment of the African Studies Association (asa) and be-
came its rst president.
The Postwar Expansion of African Studies
170
At times Herskovitss desire to control the direction of African studies
impelled him to criticize other institutions that he viewed as competition
for scarce resources. By doing so, Herskovits acted to control the pro-
duction of knowledge as he had done during the Encyclopedia of the
Negro project. In this case, during the Second World War Herskovits
questioned funding proposals that Fisk University and the University of
Pennsylvania submitted to the Rockefeller Foundation to establish their
own African studies programs.
Herskovitss cultural relativist philosophy underpinned his view of
African studies and international aairs. He considered cultural relativ-
ism as perhaps the most signicant contribution that anthropologists
had made to society.
In his most important postwar book, Man and His

Works (1948), he dened cultural relativism as the principle that evalua-
tions [of cultures] are relative to the cultural background out of which
they arise.
This was true because [j]udgments are based on experi-

ence, and experience is interpreted by each individual in terms of his own
enculturation.
Therefore cultures cannot be ranked in a hierarchy, since

evaluations of cultures by outsiders would be distorted by the evaluators
ethnocentrism. Through extensive eldwork, cultural anthropologists
had documented the diversity of cultural practices and institutions and
the essential dignity of all human cultures.
In 1940 Herskovits cau-

tioned against ranking cultures on the basis of ethnocentrism: Now . . .
dont get the idea that were superior to primitive people. Oh, we have
more gadgets, more tools, more implements of destruction, more people
in insane asylums. But every people thinks their ways are best. The only
real test is survival. And everyone on earth has survived at least to the
present. Primitive peoples have philosophies as complex as ours. But
they start with dierent premises. And their premises are just as good as
ours.
On the basis of those tenets, Herskovits argued that the West

must not impose its ideas, its programs, or its will on Africa.
Herskovitss vision for African studies contrasted with that of Ameri-
can policymakers and most foundation ocials, who were motivated by
Cold War strategy, not what was good for Africa and Africans. Hersko-
vits realized that the postwar era was a pivotal one for Africa, with the
continent rapidly moving toward independence. He argued that African
self-determination and decolonization were in the interest of both the
United States and Africa because they would improve the chances for
international peace. Although he beneted from the rise of African stud-
171
ies, Herskovits criticized the Cold War assumptions on which these
developments were based. Scientic study, divorced from narrow Cold
War concerns, could be employed to assist Africa in its transition to
political independence. African studies programs could provide Ameri-
cans with a better understanding of Africans and Africa.
American interest in African studies and area studies developed in four
stages. Prior to the Second World War, a few individual scholars, includ-
ing Herskovits, promoted African studies with relatively little assistance
from philanthropic foundations or the federal government. Area studies,
in general, received little attention at American universities.
As war
spread through Europe, Asia, and Africa, however, increased interest in
these regions provided an initial stimulus to area studies. During the late
1940s the beginning of the Cold War and Americas newfound global in-
uence led to the foundation-backed establishment of area studies pro-
grams at a few universities. In the 1950s the heightening of Cold War
tensionscaused in large part by the outbreak of hostilities in Korea and
the Soviets launching of the Sputnik satelliteconvinced the Ford Foun-
dation and the federal government to provide massive nancial support
that institutionalized area studies programs. Both the foundations and
the government believed that the national security of the United States
demanded area studies specialists to provide expert knowledge to policy-
makers to help ght the Cold War. As Edward Berman has observed, the
foundations frequently acted as the intermediaries between area special-
ists and government agencies in matters pertaining to national security.
Meanwhile, the growing strength of African independence movements

during the 1950s compelled government and foundation ocials to focus
their attention on Africa. Following his trip to Africa in 1957, Vice Presi-
dent Richard Nixon told President Dwight Eisenhower that the conti-
nent was the new area of conict between the forces of freedom and
international communism.
Cold War concerns about increased Soviet

inuence in the newly emerging independent African states impelled
foundation and government support for African studies.
Before the Second World War few American colleges oered courses
in African studies or African anthropology. A survey of 273 college and
university catalogs in 194041 found only four courses on African eth-
nology and two courses on African language oered during that year.
By 1950 American colleges oered forty-six courses on African ethnol-

172
ogy but only ve that focused exclusively on sub-Saharan Africa. By the
late 1940s only ve Americans besides Herskovits had published eth-
nographies based on African eldwork. Of the ve, three were Hersko-
vitss students: William Bascom, Joseph Greenberg, and Jack Harris.
Prior to the 1940s African studies was promoted primarily by indi-

vidual scholars such as Herskovits, Du Bois, Woodson, and William Leo
Hansberry of Howard University.
Although he may not have taught

courses on Africa during the early twentieth century, as editor of the
Crisis and in his own writings Du Bois helped disseminate information
about Africa.
Like Herskovits, Du Bois was strongly inuenced by

Franz Boas in his study of Africa. Boass talk to the 1906 Atlanta Univer-
sity graduating class was a revelation to Du Bois, who was a history
instructor there. Du Bois later recalled Boass speech: You need not be
ashamed of your African past; and then he recounted the history of black
kingdoms south of the Sahara for a thousand years. I was too astonished
to speak. All of this I had never heard and I came then and afterwards to
realize how the silence and neglect of science can let truth utterly disap-
pear or even be unconsciously distorted.
Nine years later, Du Bois

published The Negro, an important work that devoted more than half of
its contents to African history and culture.
Woodson also promoted African studies through his own writing and
by publishing numerous anthropological and historical articles in the
Journal of Negro History. In addition, meetings of Woodsons Association
for the Study of Negro Life and History (asnlh) provided a place for
academics to present their research on Africa. In fact, Herskovits and his
students presented papers at asnlh meetings and published many articles
in the Journal of Negro History. Furthermore, Woodsons The African Back-
ground Outlined or Handbook for the Study of the Negro (1936) provided
teachers, students, and other readers a source for information about
Africa, including sections on African and African American history.
The lesser-known William Leo Hansberry pioneered in the teaching

of African history in the United States at Howard University from 1922
to 1959. Hansberry started the African civilization section of the history
department and taught the rst classes in African history on ancient
African civilizations in 1922. Within two years Hansberry had already
taught eight hundred students in three dierent courses. Joseph E. Har-
ris has described Hansberrys classes as the vanguard of African studies
in the United States during the early 1920s. As Harris has pointed out,
173
The determination and commitment of this pioneering Africanist can
be more fully appreciated by recalling that most of his research was
conducted between 1916 and 1954, a 38-year period when African stud-
ies had virtually no academic status in the United States and little sup-
port among philanthropists. Consequently, Professor Hansberry had to
rely primarily on his own funds to nance his research and to purchase
audiovisual aids for his research and classes.
Hansberry also received

very little support from Howard University. Many professors at Howard
questioned Hansberrys credentials and objectivity. Political scientist
Ralph Bunche maintained in 1943 that Hansberrys work is not highly
regarded at Howard; rst because he is thought not to be adequately
equipped with scholarship [Hansberry had an M.A. from Harvard, but
no Ph.D.]; and second, because he is chauvinistic in his teaching.
Kwame Alford has observed that the resentment of Hansberry stemmed
in part from jealousy by prominent Howard professors over the large
number of students signing up for Hansberrys classes. In addition, phi-
losopher Alain Locke and biologist Ernest E. Just initiated an internal
smear campaign against Hansberry to ensure that Locke and not Hans-
berry would be sent by Howard to the 1924 opening of King Tuts tomb
in Luxor, Egypt.
Several white scholars and institutions also did work related to Africa.
Oric Bates, curator of African archaeology and ethnology at Harvard
Universitys Peabody Museum until his death in 1918, undertook re-
search in Egypt, Nubia, and Libya and published The Eastern Libyans:
An Essay. In addition, Bates was the rst editor of Harvards African
Studies Series, which began in 1917.
At Yale, Charles T. Loram con-

ducted research on African education; the School of Advanced Inter-
national Studies in Washington dc oered classes in African studies;
and the Council of African Aairs disseminated information, mostly on
South Africa. Other organizations interested in education and the dis-
semination of information on Africa were American Christian Mission-
ary forces, American philanthropic agencies, the Department of State,
the African Academy of Arts and Research, the American Council on
African Education, and the Liberian Foundation.
Herskovits led the way in developing the subeld of African anthro-

pology and thereby helped move African studies into the mainstream of
academia in the United States. Prior to the 1950s African studies, if
present at all, was generally conned to the anthropology and geography
174
departments.
Since most historians dened history as the study of

written documents and most African peoples had no written language,
historians generally denied the existence of African history. Therefore
African history became the province of anthropology, which studied
nonliterate cultures.
During the 1930s Herskovits taught some of the

few courses on Africa in America. His course The Negro in Africa and
America was the rst one on African anthropology oered at North-
western University.
Under Herskovitss leadership, Northwestern be-

came the center of African anthropology in the United States. While
most American anthropologists studied Native Americans, with the
most common area of interest being the American Southwest, Hersko-
vitss focus on African studies and New World Negro work was a notable
exception.
With his 1931 eld trip to West Africa, Herskovits became

one of the rst American anthropologists to do eld work in Africa.
Moreover, Herskovits taught most of the next generation of Americans

who worked in Africa.
At the December 1946 annual meeting of the

American Anthropological Association, Herskovits chaired a sympo-
sium on Africa in which he and his students read four of the six papers
delivered at the session.
Martin Staniland has observed that the 1930s

saw the rst serious investigations of African societies by American
scholars, notably William Bascom, Jack Harris [both students of Hersko-
vitss], Lorenzo D. Turner, andabove allMelville J. Herskovits.
As
late as 1950 there were only between ten and twenty African specialists at
American universities.
At Northwestern University, Herskovits had

helped produce four of the countrys specialists on Africa. These were
Harris, chief of the section of African research, Trusteeship Division,
United Nations; Joseph Greenberg, assistant professor of anthropology
and a specialist on African linguistics, Columbia University; Bascom,
Northwestern anthropology professor; and Ralph Bunche, chief of the
Trusteeship Division, United Nations. Greenberg and Bascom earned
their Ph.D.s in anthropology at Northwestern; Harris earned his under-
graduate degree at Northwestern; and Bunche did postdoctoral work at
Northwestern.
As an Africanist, Herskovits sought to center Africans as the subject of

study. Until the 1920s missionaries, travelers, and historians of imperial-
ism produced most of the writing on Africa. These writers depicted
Africans as uncivilized peoples with no history. They maintained that any
complex institutions in African society were the result of external inu-
175
ences from Europe or Asia.
Prominent white academics also purveyed

a pejorative view of African cultures. In 1926 Yale professor Charles T.
Loram asserted that the coming [to Africa] of the white man with his
higher civilization, his Christianity, his superior hygiene, and his better
methods of cultivation and of manufacture, has been a blessing to the
Native peoples.
That same year Herskovits criticized missionary writ-

ings about Africa, which, due to their focus on conversion and bringing
to the heathen the blessings of the Truth, gave little attention to what
the natives think and do.
By seeking to understand Africans through

the study of their culture and history, Herskovits sought to reverse pe-
jorative and stereotypical views of Africa. After becoming interested in
African studies as a graduate student, Herskovits published a seminal
article in 1930 that for the rst time classied the various regions of
Africa into distinct culture areas.
In his two-volume work on Daho-

mey, Herskovits argued that Dahomey had created its own complex
political, cultural, and social institutions, with minimal European inu-
ence. In this way, Herskovits refuted those who assumed African in-
feriority and insisted that complex aspects of African culture must be the
result of external inuences.
Unlike earlier writers who evaluated Afri-

can cultures in comparison to Western culture, Herskovits sought to
understand Africa on its own terms. By approaching African cultures in
this way, Herskovits helped steer writers away from a Eurocentric cul-
tural hierarchy and toward an objective study of world cultures.
During the 1940s Herskovits sought to capitalize on increased govern-
ment and foundation interest in area studies programs generated by
Americas involvement in World War II and its emergence as a global
power. The governments demand for knowledge and experts led foun-
dations and social scientists to mobilize to meet the governments war-
time needs for foreign area experts to train ocials for overseas service
and to provide information on strategic foreign areas.
The government
especially sought out anthropologists because they had substantially
more experience in Asia, Africa, and Latin America than did other social
scientists.
By the second year of the war, a majority of anthropologists

were involved at least part-time in government service.
Anthropolo-
gists worked for many government agencies, including the Department
of State, the Oce of Strategic Services, the Board of Economic Warfare,
and the War Relocation Authority. Ruth Benedict and several other an-
176
thropologists conducted studies of Rumanian, Thai, and Japanese na-
tional character, and investigations of the eects of strategic bombing on
Japanese morale to help American occupation ocials understand the
populations with whom they would be dealing. Other anthropologists
served in language-training schools or other training programs for mili-
tary occupation personnel. During the war the newly formed Society for
Applied Anthropology published a journal, Applied Anthropology, de-
voted to employing anthropology to help solve practical problems re-
lated to wartime questions of dealing with occupied peoples.
The Second World War transformed the relationship between the

federal government and social scientists. The increased demand for an-
thropologists to train individuals for a wide range of practical work
meant that as the discipline expanded, it moved away from detached
scholarship. Many social scientists eschewed their prewar rejection of
government service. Top social scientists had previously regarded coop-
eration with the governments military and intelligence agencies as dis-
reputable, and even as hostile to science per se. For instance, during
World War I Franz Boas had written a letter to the Nation attacking
anthropologists undercover work for U.S. military intelligence agen-
cies.
But during the 1940s social scientists attitudes changed as they

sought to help the war eort and aid victims of the Holocaust through
government service.
Herskovitss experiences and change of attitude toward government
service during the Second World War paralleled those of other social
scientists. In 1942, for the rst time, Herskovits went to work for the
government. He helped to organize a school for Civil Aairs ocers for
the War Department.
Civil Aairs training schools were created at

several universities, including Northwestern, to oer short-term courses
to teach occupation and intelligence ocers the language, history, cul-
ture, and geography of the countries where they would be posted.
In
addition to his regular teaching duties and those with the Civil Aairs
training school, Herskovits was drafted to work for the Board of Eco-
nomic Warfare (bew) as head consultant, and during most of 1943 he
spent every other week in Washington dc.
The bew, headed by Vice

President Henry Wallace, procured war materials such as rubber and
quinine from Latin America. Herskovitss extensive eldwork experience
in Brazil and Suriname made him an apt choice to work for the bew,
177
which sought to improve social conditions in Latin America in order to
improve workers eciency in the production of war materials.
Herskovitss wartime correspondence provides no evidence that he

viewed his government service as inappropriate in any way. He viewed
the war as, at least in part, a battle against racism, a battle he had fought
all his life. In the classroom he challenged student assumptions about
race in America. Arkansas native Parma Basham, a Northwestern student
during the 1930s, remembered Herskovits as a brilliant lecturer who
attracted students in large numbers and transformed students notions
about race. Basham credited Herskovitss inuence with making it pos-
sible for me to become an activist white liberal in the Little Rock school
crisis of 195758.
In 1944 Herskovits invited black poet and journalist

Frank Marshall Davis to speak to his students about race relations. He
told Davis that most of Northwesterns students were well-to-do and
had no idea how racism ever directly touches their lives. I want you to
shake them up. Apparently, Davis did just that. He later recalled how
the students became red-faced and squirmed uncomfortably in their
seats as he explained how white realtors used racist practices such as
restrictive covenants to create a housing shortage and articially drive up
rents for black tenants. Following the talk, Herskovits invited Davis to
return annually because the students needed a dose of reality about race
in America.
Even before Americas entrance into the war, Herskovits supported

the struggle of Jewish teachers and scholars to ee German-occupied
territory to avoid being sent to Nazi concentration camps. During the
1930s and 1940s Herskovits helped Jewish refugees come to the United
States by arranging assistance from others, raising money, or trying to
locate American jobs to facilitate their immigration.
He also oered to
distribute anti-Nazi pamphlets to refute Nazi propaganda in the United
States.
In 1933 Herskovits donated money to help fund fellowships

for German Jewish scholars to be brought to this country.
During the
late 1930s he raised money and helped to make arrangements with Amer-
ican and foreign diplomats to save several German and Austrian Jewish
scholars and teachers from the concentration camps.
In November
1938 Herskovits helped sponsor a meeting organized by the National
Conference of Christians and Jews to protest the atrocities and in-
human treatment of minorities in Fascist Germany and also to devise
ways and means to alleviate the suering of these people.
Thus Hers-
178
kovitss wartime service and the issues raised by the war contributed
to his overt rejection of a strictly construed detachment from policy
questions.
While the wartime government employed social scientists with inter-
national expertise, the learned societies and foundations promoted area
studies programs to meet the demand for specialists. They did so because
they believed that in the postwar world, the United States would take on
a greater international peacekeeping role.
The American Council of

Learned Societies (acls), the Social Science Research Council (ssrc),
and the National Research Council (nrc) formed area studies commit-
tees during the war and then joined with the Smithsonian Institution in
establishing the Ethnogeographic Board as a focal center of their inter-
ests.
The Ethnogeographic Board, primarily nanced by the Carnegie

Corporation and the Rockefeller Foundation, furnished information to
the federal government about remote foreign areas of strategic impor-
tance to the war eort.
In June 1943 the ssrc issued a report entitled

World Regions in the Social Sciences that advocated increased re-
search, graduate and undergraduate instruction, and centers of area stud-
ies so that the United States could meet its postwar role as a member of
the United Nations. The report did not clearly dene this role. The area
study centers should be set up in those places with the best resources in
personnel, funding sources, and geographic and historic connections.
Herskovits received a copy of the report and forwarded copies to a

Northwestern committee that was considering postwar planning.
As
a longtime advocate of area studies, Herskovits welcomed the ssrcs
support.
As chair of the Committee on African Anthropology of the nrc dur-

ing the war, Herskovits supported eorts to expand scholarly work on
Africa.
Particularly at the beginning of Americas involvement in the

war, Africa took on strategic importance as American and British armies
invaded North Africa in Operation Torch in 1942. After the Ameri-
can entrance into the war following the Japanese attack on Pearl Har-
bor, President Franklin Roosevelt decided that liberating Northwest
Africacontrolled by the pro-Nazi French government headquartered
at Vichyrepresented the best opportunity for a quick victory with the
least risk, a result that the president hoped would boost American mo-
rale.
While the war brought increased interest in area studies, Africa

reecting its long-time deprecationdid not get as much attention as
179
other regions. Of the three learned societies, the nrc, ssrc, and acls,
only the nrc formed a committee on African studies.
Although he
knew that committee meetings in late 1942 and early 1943 were designed
to provide technical assistance to the war eort, Herskovits saw the
meetings importance in terms of advancing the scholarly work of Afri-
canists in the United States. He was pleased that by bringing together
the American Africanists, the [National Research] Council has provided
a focal point for the stimulation of work in the eld of African anthropol-
ogy that has up to the present been lacking.
Despite his general advocacy for the expansion of African studies,

Herskovitss belief in the primacy of Northwesterns program led him to
resist eorts by other universities to form African studies programs.
Herskovits maintained that Northwestern, with fteen years of expe-
rience in undertaking research and oering classes in African anthro-
pology, was the obvious place to establish an African studies program.
He saw other universities as competition for limited resources. Conse-
quently, Herskovits insisted that during the war, funding should only go
to assist institutions that can help people prepare themselves for fur-
thering the war eort in that continent, telling the General Education
Board (geb) of the Rockefeller Foundation that opportunities to fund
Africanist research should wait until after the war.
Nevertheless, the Rockefeller Foundation and its geb provided grants

for African studies programs at Fisk University and the University of
Pennsylvania. Both universities submitted funding proposals in 1942,
invoking national interest and objective research as justications for
funding.
The University of Pennsylvania, which had formed an Afri-

can collection [Heinrich Wieschho was the curator] in its University
Museum before the war, sought to build on the Army Specialized Train-
ing Program on North Africa, which the U.S. Army conducted during
194142. The Rockefeller Foundation gave the university $3,000 each
year from 1943 to 1945.
Fisk University sociologist Charles S. Johnson, chair of the Depart-

ment of Social Sciences, proposed the formation of an African studies
program at the Tennessee college.
Fisks experience in African studies

over the previous ten years helped persuade the geb to provide support.
For eight years Fisk anthropologists Mark H. Watkins and Lorenzo

Turner had undertaken research in African linguistics.
For ten years Fisk

professors, including sociologist Robert Park, had oered a seminar on
180
race and culture. Moreover, Fisk was the only Negro institution, in
which courses in African cultures and languages have been systematically
developed, including an ongoing three-year study of the grammar of
the Vai [a West African] language. Johnsons personal relationship with
Jackson Davis of the geb also worked to Fisks advantage.
Prior to making any decision about the proposed programs at Fisk

and Pennsylvania, the geb sought Herskovitss advice. Herskovits ex-
pressed reservations about both programs. Although he supported
Pennsylvanias funding request, Herskovits criticized Wieschho be-
cause he had little insight into human values. Herskovits asserted that
Wieschho failed to give his students an understanding of the relation-
ship between culture and behavior that we in this country are stressing
these days or an understanding of the human situations which Ameri-
cans going to Africa would have to meet in their work there.
Earlier,
Frances Herskovits had met with the geb in her husbands absence (he
was working as chief consultant to the Board of Economic Warfare in
Washington dc), and she criticized Wieschho because his German
methods of analysis are statistical and limited in value.
Herskovits was even more critical of the Fisk proposal. He argued that
much of the work proposed would be duplicating studies already made,
since grammars and dictionaries that are quite adequate for any emer-
gency program already exist for many of the languages named. While he
had earlier supported the work of Fisk anthropologists Watkins and
Turner, he now criticized their credentials.
Although Watkins was

well trained, Herskovits asserted that he had no eld experience and
had published only one book, based on his doctoral research at the
University of Chicago. Moreover, Herskovits was doubtful whether
Watkins could teach people to speak African languages as preparation for
practical work in Africa.
While he valued Turners linguistic research

among blacks, known as the Gullah, in the Sea Islands of South Caro-
lina, which had revealed extensive evidence of African linguistic sur-
vivals, Herskovits questioned Turners ability to teach foreign languages.
According to Herskovits, Like many phoneticians, . . . [Turner] does
not learn languages very well; for example, in Brazil almost everyone
who mentioned what a sincere and attractive individual he was, also
commented on how poor his Portuguese was.
Consequently, Hersko-
vits recommended that the geb reject the Fisk proposal. He did not
believe that Fisk could advantageously carry on a program in the Africa-
181
nist eld as ambitious as the one outlined in this proposal. Instead,
Herskovits suggested that the geb continue to extend modest support
for Turners and Watkinss linguistic studies.
Although the geb agreed with some of Herskovitss criticisms on spe-

cic shortcomings at Fisk, they still believed that Fisks proposal for gen-
eral work in African studies was warranted.
An attempt was made to

address Herskovitss concerns in a meeting with Charles Johnson, Hers-
kovits, and Jackson Davis of the geb. Herskovits did not mention any
specic criticisms at the meeting, but he did indicate his willingness to
advise Thomas E. Jones, white president of Fisk, on the program. John-
son later told Davis that although he anticipated dierences of opin-
ion, he would be happy to have Herskovits serve as a consultant.
In any event, the geb funded the Fisk program, but in a way that
indicates that Herskovitss criticisms may have had some impact. The
funding of $10,000 was primarily used to hire Edwin Smith, a South
Africanborn missionary and British-trained anthropologist, as pro-
gram director and visiting professor for the 194344 academic year. By
doing so, the geb rejected Charles S. Johnsons recommendation that
foundation funding be used primarily for Fellowships for African infor-
mants. The geb justied the decision to hire Smith based on his experi-
ence in African studies and his status as a former president of the Royal
Anthropological Society.
This hiring may indicate that the geb did

not feel condent enough in Fisks personnel to fund the program with-
out bringing in an outsider. Herskovits, however, was not pleased with
Smiths hiring due to Smiths missionary background and connection
with imperialism as a British national.
Despite Herskovitss criticisms of the Fisk program, he did participate

by delivering papers there. In November 1944 Herskovits gave talks
entitled Africa as a Unit and as a Classication, The Culture-Areas of
Africa, The Underlying Similarities in African Culture, and Africa
and the Old World.
Although the Fisk program showed early vigorby the second year
of operation, the program had ve professors, with Lorenzo Turner
acting as department headby 1948 the program declined and was dis-
banded.
By 1947 Watkins was in Guatemala on a eld trip and Turner

had left Fisk for Roosevelt College in Chicago.
Pennsylvanias program met a similar fate. By 1948 it had expired due

to loss of personnel and changing academic direction.
The big blow

182
was program director Wieschhos decision to leave the school for an
appointment with the United Nations.
Although area studies had been given a boost by the wartime demand
for international experts, Africas importance in American foreign policy
and with the foundations temporarily declined when the Allies ceased
operations in North Africa in 1943. Africa again took a backseat to other
foreign regions. The decline in foundation interest is demonstrated by
the demise of the African studies programs at Fisk and Pennsylvania and
the terminations of the African committee of the nrc and the Eth-
nogeographic Board, which were inactive by November 1944.
Limited
government interest in Africa is shown by the fact that only .15 percent
of American foreign aid went to African territories from 1945 to 1955.
Commercial interests in Africa also remained small. In 1960 only 4 per-
cent of American exports went to Africa, the same as in 1930.
This momentary decline in interest in Africa also doomed Herskovitss

plans to hold an international conference on Africa to facilitate the fur-
ther development of African studies.
As chair of the nrc Committee

on African Anthropology, Herskovits convened a meeting in March
1943 to consider the formation of an African Institute, an African Oce
of Information, and a conference on current African problems. Edwin
Embree of the Rosenwald Foundation, W. E. B. Du Bois, Anson Phelps
Stokes, and Ralph Bunche attended the meeting, which was nanced by
the Rosenwald Fund and the Phelps-Stokes Fund.
At the April 1943

meeting Herskovits was elected acting chair; Du Bois, vice chair; Em-
bree, treasurer; and Bunche, secretary.
Despite an extensive search, the

group failed to nd someone willing to serve as permanent chair. Among
those who turned down the position were Colonel Allan McBride of the
U.S. Army General Sta, Stokes, Vice President Henry Wallace, and
Lloyd Garrison, dean of the University of Wisconsin law school.
In
April 1945 Herskovits notied the committee members that because of
limited American interest in Africa, no independent African Institute or
branch of the International African Institute (iai) of London could be
organized. The Africa conference committee ceased operations.
The postwar development of area studies programs occurred in two

stages. The rst occurred in the decade after the war, and a second and
much larger expansion occurred from the mid-1950s to the mid-1960s.
At the end of the war, a consensus emerged among the major founda-
tions, the learned societies, and the federal government that in order to
183
forestall another worldwide conict, American isolationism must be re-
jected and replaced with internationalist policies.
The foundations
support for area studies was precipitated by their recognition of the
United Statess global responsibilities, including those of strengthening
non-Communist countries in the context of the emerging Cold War.
During the immediate postwar period the Rockefeller Foundation and

the Carnegie Corporation provided most of the funding for area studies
programs, which were established at major universities. Increasing an-
tagonism between the Soviet Union and the United States and the Ford
Foundations decision to make an enormous commitment to area studies
programs during the mid-1950s dened the second postwar stage in the
development of area studies.
By the end of the war two complementary trends had convinced the
Carnegie Corporation to become a strong supporter of interdisciplinary
area studies programs and a potential source of funding for Herskovitss
African studies program. As early as the 1930s the Carnegie Corporation
supported interdisciplinary social science research. In 1938 Charles Dol-
lard persuaded Carnegie president Frederick Keppel to establish inter-
disciplinary postdoctoral fellowships to train scholars of one discipline in
a second subject.
Then, as a result of the Carnegie Corporations post-

war study that reevaluated its entire programin which important indi-
viduals in government, business, and journalism were consultedthe
corporation decided to promote the training of interdisciplinary area
studies specialists. This decision was inuenced by the wartime focus of
the Ethnogeographic Board, which furnished information to the federal
government about remote foreign areas of strategic importance to the
war eort. Since government agencies generally followed an area ap-
proach, the board decided to do the same rather than using a disciplinary
approach, which would promote programs in a single discipline like
Russian history or Japanese sociology. For the Carnegie Corporation,
the interests in interdisciplinary social science and area studies t nicely,
as both would advance interdisciplinary research into human behavior.
Herskovits sought to capitalize on this postwar rise in interest in area

studies among the research councils, the government, the foundations,
and the media. His experience and status in the eld and his connections
with numerous foundation ocials placed him in an excellent position
to make his case for an African studies program at Northwestern. In 1946
Herskovits began to lobby the foundations in earnest for such a pro-
184
gram. When John W. Gardner of the Carnegie Corporation told Hersko-
vits of the foundations interest in area studies in early December 1946
and of his plan to visit several midwestern universities, Herskovits in-
vited Gardner to Northwestern.
At rst Gardner was not particularly

impressed with African studies at Northwestern, noting that although
there were three professors, there was nothing resembling a program in
African studies.
In 1947, at a conference nanced by the Carnegie

Corporation and convened by the ssrc Committee on World Area Re-
search at Columbia University, Herskovits protested the omission of a
panel on Africa. While Herskovits admitted that the dearth of Africanists
made it impossible to get together enough people to have such a discus-
sion, he argued that the ssrc committee should support the African
eld in the future to remedy the problem.
After hearing from a third party that the University of Pennsylvania

was negotiating with the Carnegie Corporation to fund their African
studies program, Herskovits lobbied the Carnegie Corporation, the
geb, and the nrc to consider Northwestern University as a center for
African studies. Herskovits told the Carnegie Corporation and the geb
that, based on its two decades of success in training African specialists in
anthropology, Northwestern was better prepared and had a better claim
to funding for African studies than did Pennsylvania.
Herskovits im-
plored anthropologist A. Irving Hallowell of the nrc to reverse the
decision that further action [supporting African studies] should prob-
ably await the development of a strong institute of African studies at
some university. Herskovits insisted that an African studies program
already existed at Northwestern except in name . . . and I feel the fact
should be made clear to all interested in development of the Africanist
eld. He also asserted that Northwesterns exemplary record of student
training, its success in winning awards and grants, and its focus on an-
thropology, which was the key to African studies, made Northwestern
the prime candidate for foundation support for an extensive program.
In lieu of direct foundation support for the African studies program, in

the spring of 1947 Herskovits found other avenues for funding research
in Africa. Noting the diculty of obtaining support for any consistent
program of scientic African studies, Herskovits recommended that the
iai of London amend its research program so as to permit grants for
eld-work and publication to be made to students who have trained in
American universities.
Founded in 1926 and funded by the Rocke-

185
feller Foundation, the iai was the rst institute on Africa that was largely
controlled by academics and not colonial ocials or missionaries.
Herskovits made three recommendations to the iai for the development

of African studies programs. He proposed research into aspects of Afri-
can life that have tended to be neglected under the pressure of practical
problems, including [s]tudies of New World Communities [that]
have revealed how tenacious are these phases of African life, and how far-
reaching their implications. He also wanted studies on dierent ethnic
groups without regard to the political boundaries established by the
Colonial Powers, which too often disregard ethnic lines. Finally, he
asked the iai to support his recommendation that the Fulbright research
fellowships, established by the U.S. Congress in 1946, be used to fund
work in the colonies of European powers and not just in the countries
themselves.
In May 1948, in his capacity as chair of the nrc Com-

mittee on African Anthropology, Herskovits successfully lobbied the
Department of State to accept his position that Fulbright fellowships
fund research in the colonies of Belgium, France, and Britain. The iai
also gave its support.
Concurrently, Herskovits was added to the exe-

cutive council of the institute.
In July 1947 Herskovits again requested Carnegie Corporation sup-

port for developing an African area studies program.
Gardner ad-
vised Herskovits that the foundation was not yet ready to act on African
studies, but he left open the possibility of working with Herskovits.
Moreover, Gardner informed Herskovits that the negotiations with the
University of Pennsylvania had been terminated.
Ocials there had

decided to limit their program to North Africa, leaving sub-Saharan
Africa open to Northwestern.
Despite Gardners mixed message, Herskovits perceived an oppor-

tunity to pursue his related interests in African American and African
studies. As we have seen, these interests were fundamentally intertwined
in Herskovitss mind. Since his 1926 proposal to the foundations for a
broad-based inquiry into the cultures of peoples of African descent on
both sides of the Atlantic, Herskovits had sought opportunities to ex-
pand research and teaching in these areas.
During the war Herskovits, inuenced by the increasing political in-
terest in Africa, began to shift his rationale for African studies. At rst he
argued that African studies would illuminate African American cultures.
Thus in 1942 Herskovits informally oated an idea for research in Africa,
186
asserting that Africanist research would help us analyze both the scien-
tic and practical problems arising out of Negro-White contacts in this
country and elsewhere in the New World.
In 1944 Herskovits pro-

posed the creation of a joint committee of the research councils on
African American and African studies due to their close connection.
The ssrc and the nrc, however, turned down the idea for a joint com-
mittee, as the focus during the war was on area studies, and thus a
committee based on a connection between Africans and Americans of
African descent generated little interest.
By the end of the war Herskovits had shifted his focus. He now argued
that African American cultural research would illuminate African cul-
tures. In 1946 he read a paper at a symposium on Africa sponsored by the
nrc Committee on African Anthropology in which he maintained that
an understanding of New World Negro cultures will reciprocally deepen
our understanding of the relevant African cultures themselves, give unity
to a broader eld of research, and open the door for an interchange that
cannot but be fruitful for Africanists and Afroamericanists alike.
Moreover, Herskovits claimed that because of the historical connection

between peoples of African descent on both sides of the Atlantic, research
in both elds represented no more than work on dierent parts of but a
single eld of study.
He pointed out that a number of concepts

learned from research in African American cultures also illuminated Afri-
can cultural research. For instance, research in New World Negro studies
demonstrated the tenacity of African cultures. Understanding this te-
nacity in the New World would help researchers comprehend the ability
of African culture to withstand the European inuence during the colo-
nial era.
In late 1947, with the approval of Northwestern president Franklyn

Snyder, Herskovits formulated his plans for development of both Afri-
can and African American studies.
Herskovits planned to apply to the

foundations for about $100,000 over ve years to train history, political
science, education, and geography faculty; invite African and African
American specialists to Northwestern; increase library resources; nance
fellowships and eldwork; and add an African languages specialist. Un-
der Herskovitss plan, no degrees would be oered in the two subelds;
degrees would still be granted by the traditional disciplines. The anthro-
pology department would continue to be the focus of African and Afri-
187
can American studies, but other departments would add specialties in
these areas.
Neither the Carnegie Corporation nor the Northwestern administra-

tion was persuaded by Herskovitss plan to combine African and African
American studies into one program. While the emergence of the United
States as a global power had heightened interest in areas outside the
United States, there was no corresponding increase in interest by the
foundations in African American studies. During the postwar era the
foundations evinced little enthusiasm for studies of African American
culture. This was due in part to the inuence of the Carnegie-Myrdal
study. An American Dilemma concluded that Americas race problem
was a moral problem for whites, and this interpretation led to studies of
prejudice and educational solutions. As a result, community studies or
cultural studies of African Americans were rare during the 1940s and
1950s.
The Carnegie Corporation encouraged Herskovits to pursue an infor-

mal African studies program focused on increasing eld research by stu-
dents and faculty but told him to exclude the Americas from the pro-
posal.
This was a key turning point for Herskovits. Africa would now
be at the center of his career, with African American studies relegated to
a subordinate position. For the second time, the foundations response
to political developments had inuenced the direction of Herskovitss
work. Nonetheless, Herskovits continued to press the foundations to
sponsor African American studies. In 1950 he requested Ford Founda-
tion support for a combined African and African American studies pro-
gram, but it, too, was rejected. Similarly, Ford turned down his 1956
request for support of extensive acculturation research among African
Americans in the West Indies, South America, and the United States.
In any event, Herskovits accepted the Carnegie Corporations recom-

mendations and submitted a request for $25,000 over ve years to -
nance eld research, student training, and library resources in African
studies. In support of his proposal, Herskovits noted that because the
war had limited his eld research program to the Americas, he would
soon have a number of people with eld training in the study of Negro
cultures, ripe for work in Africa itself.
In October 1948 the Carnegie Corporation approved three years of

funding at $10,000 per year to support Northwesterns African research
program.
After the grant was made public in December 1948, Hersko-

188
vits delineated the objectives of the program. First, the program would
focus on all elements of African culture, with an emphasis on cultural
change due to external inuences. Second, the program would con-
centrate on training researchers in African studies. Toward that end,
Northwestern would hold multidisciplinary seminars with international
scholars of African studies.
Herskovits expected that by the end of the

three-year grant, the program would have trained students for African
work, created African courses in several departments at Northwestern,
and improved the librarys Africa collections.
With the Carnegie funding, Herskovits established what is generally

regarded as the rst major interdisciplinary African studies program in
the United States.
During the next fteen years Herskovits spent most

of his energies on the development and expansion of the African studies
program at Northwestern University.
Sally Falk Moore has observed

that during these years, Herskovitss major inuence was . . . through
his indefatigable lecturing, publishing, and teaching about Africa and the
African diaspora and through his considerable organizational skill in
building at Northwestern University the leading center of African Stud-
ies in the U.S.
To a large extent, he now left behind his prewar

program of charting the inuence of African culture in the Americas. A
combination of the exigencies of the Second World War and the Cold
War, the inuence of the government and the philanthropies, and his
long-standing interest in Africa moved Herskovits toward this concen-
tration on African studies as Africa assumed strategic importance to
American foreign policy.
Herskovits proceeded to enact his vision of the African studies pro-
gram at Northwestern. In January 1949 he inaugurated a weekly inter-
disciplinary faculty seminar on Africa.
Participants during the initial

quarter included mostly academics but also a British colonial attach and
a missionary. Lecture subjects included native peoples, economics, poli-
tics, linguistics, demographics, public health, colonial policy, missionary
activity, and education. Northwesterns African collection in its Deering
Library was expanded with the help of the University of Pennsylvania,
which decided to turn over its sub-Saharan Africa collections to North-
western following its decision to concentrate on North Africa. About
$15,000 of the Carnegie money was used to award fellowships and schol-
arships for student eldwork in Africa.
Herskovits continued to press for and receive increased support for

189
African studies from the Carnegie Corporation and other agencies.
To supplement the Carnegie grant, Herskovits obtained grants from
the ssrc and the Rockefeller Foundation to fund student training and
research.
In November 1950 the Carnegie Corporation provided

$10,000 for the 1951 Summer Institute on Contemporary Africa at
Northwestern (held under Herskovitss direction).
In August 1951 Northwestern submitted a grant request to the Car-

negie Corporation for $33,000 per year for ve years for the African
studies program, which now included political science, history, econom-
ics, geography, sociology, and anthropology.
Underscoring the need

for more funds to train Africanists, Herskovits had reported in Decem-
ber 1950 that in the United States there were only two historians, one
economist, one political scientist, no sociologist or social psychologist,
two geographers, and about a dozen anthropologists primarily con-
cerned with Africa.
Convinced by the need for more trained African-

ists, the Carnegie Corporation approved a grant of $20,000 per year over
ve years for Northwestern to form an African Study Center and expand
its African studies program.
The African Study Center would carry

on and encourage African research, maintain a library of Africana, train
personnel, disseminate information concerning the continent, act as a
clearing house of African information, and help coordinate research ac-
tivities in the eld. Herskovits was named director of the center and
chair of the interdisciplinary Committee on African Studies that would
create the center. Under the new grant, the interdisciplinary African
seminar would continue to be held each summer, an undergraduate
major in African studies would be established, and Ph.D.s in the African
eld of particular majors would become available.
Meanwhile, despite their strong support for Northwesterns African

studies program, some Carnegie Corporation ocials objected to Hers-
kovitss continued leadership. Charles Dollard, now Carnegie Corpora-
tion president, told Payson Wild, Northwestern vice president and dean
of faculties, we did not see Herskovits as the key man in a large scale
program of African studies but had great respect for him as a teacher.
Similarly, John Gardner reported that the ocers of cc [Carnegie Cor-
poration] have distinct reservations concerning Herskovits leadership.
Furthermore, the corporation got the impression that Wilds opinion of
Herskovits was not very dierent from our own.
While Dollard did

not indicate the nature of his objection to Herskovits, he probably found
190
Herskovits dicult to work with. Dollards opinion of Herskovits was
most likely formed during their involvement with the Carnegie Study of
the Negro when Myrdal and Herskovits had clashed over substantive
and administrative issues, with Dollard generally siding with Myrdal.
The Northwestern administration assuaged Dollards objections to

Herskovitss continued leadership of the African studies program by
setting up a strong inter-departmental committee . . . to provide top-
level guidance for Herskovits.
After Herskovits agreed to the creation

of the oversight committee, the Carnegie Corporation agreed to con-
tinue their support with Herskovits as head of the program.
Although the record indicates no further mention of replacing Hers-

kovits, ocials at the Carnegie Corporation continued to express mixed
feelings about him. In April 1954 a Carnegie ocial reported on a meet-
ing with Herskovits: As a result of the egocentrism which is such a
dominant theme of a conversation with mh [Herskovits], one comes
away after a visit at Northwestern very much impressed with this being a
one man show. Although this ocial believed that Herskovits had great
inuence on the program, he maintained that anthropologist William
Bascom and political scientist Roland Young, among others, played im-
portant roles in the programs success. The report concluded that there is
little doubt that mh is doing a good job.
In 1951 Northwesterns African studies program was not only the best
in the nation, but it was the only one providing any training for graduate
students. Although there was evidence of incipient programs at several
institutions, including the University of Chicago, Roosevelt College,
and the Council on Foreign Relations, little actual graduate-level train-
ing was being accomplished.
An ssrc report on area studies at Ameri-

can universities indicated that there were only thirteen graduate students
in African studies, all at Northwestern.
The report concluded that the

nation was seriously handicapped in its international relations because
of a lack of specialists trained in the geography, language, customs and
social structure of the eight major geographical areas.
Herskovits capitalized on the emergence of the Ford Foundation as

the major player in area studies in the context of increasing Cold War
tensions to make great advances in the African studies program at North-
western. During the late 1940s the Ford Foundation formulated an am-
bitious plan to promote area studies, including African studies. Estab-
lished during the late 1930s, the Ford Foundation remained an in-house
191
charity of Ford Motor Company that supported local Detroit institu-
tions through the mid-1940s. During the late 1940s, however, the Ford
Foundation established itself as a major funding agency for national and
international projects.
This development stemmed from the recom-

mendations in 1949 of a Ford Foundation committee headed by H.
Rowan Gaither Jr., chair of the Rand Corporation, a contract research
organization. This committee established the foundations ve pro-
gram areas: peace, democracy, economics, education, and human be-
havior. Moreover, the Gaither report emphasized international projects
in each area.
The Carnegie Corporation sought to increase the impact of its own

programs by persuading other institutions, notably Ford, to expand
their initiatives. In this connection, Gaither was given access to Carnegie
Corporation planning memoranda. In addition, Carnegies John Gard-
ner advised the Ford Foundation on area studies programs and intro-
duced Fords ocials to prominent gures in the eld, like Hersko-
vits.
These developments led the Ford Foundation to substantially

expand its aid to area studies.
Calculations based on the Cold War also played an important part in

the Ford Foundations decision to support area studies in general and
African studies in particular. In 1954 Gaither, now president of the Ford
Foundation, explicitly made the connections between the Cold War and
area studies. Any program directed toward human welfare in this period
of history must be concerned with the increased involvement of our
country in world aairs, with our new responsibilities for international
leadership, and, above all, with the deadly threat to any hope of human
progress posed by wars and communism, asserted the Ford Foundation
president.
During the 1950s American policymakers focused increased

attention on Africa in the context of the unfolding independence move-
ment on the continent. Many politicians believed that the Soviet Union
would attempt to extend its inuence in Africa by supporting Commu-
nist insurgents who would try to topple colonial regimes.
In 1955
Chester Bowles, an aide to then-senator John F. Kennedy, supported a
call for new African studies programs by pointing out that the Soviet
Union had recently set up a major center in Tashkent.
By the
mid-1950s the Eisenhower administration and the foundations consid-
ered Africa an important Cold War battleground.
In this connection,
192
Vice President Nixon asserted that Africa could well prove to be the
decisive factor in the Cold War struggle.
Herskovits, in close contact with John Gardner of the Carnegie Cor-

poration and aware of the emergence of the Ford Foundation as the key
foundation for area studies programs, now began to lobby Ford for
more substantial funding.
In May 1950 Herskovits, backed by North-

westerns administration, submitted a ve-year $187,500 funding pro-
posal to the Ford Foundation for a Program of Research and Training in
African and African American Studies. Herskovits asserted that this pro-
gram would serve as a historical laboratory for testing assumptions
concerning the results of contacts between peoples of diering tradi-
tional backgrounds, determining how cultures change as a result of
interaction. Herskovits also maintained that the increased global impor-
tance of Africa in terms of natural resources and man-power potential
demanded such a program to provide policymakers with the essential
information to make more informed decisions. The training and em-
ployment of more African specialists would increase the eectiveness
of programs of economic development. These specialists would foster
greater understanding of indigenous cultures and more eective ways
of working with them. Specically, the funding would cover eld re-
search, seminars, lectureships, fellowships, publication subsidies, library
purchases, and other expenses.
Herskovitss funding request, how-

ever, was premature. Ford had not yet decided to include Africa in its
programs.
Although Ford took no immediate action on this request, Hersko-

vitss 1952 recommendation that the Ford Foundation Board on Over-
seas Training and Research start to include sub-Saharan Africa in its
programs helped induce Ford to support the training of Africanists.
Toward that end, the Ford Foundation created the Foreign Area Fellow-
ship Program, and in 1954 Ford began to include Africa in the pro-
gram.
From 1952 to 1955 the Ford Foundation provided three hun-

dred fellowships for study and research in Africa, Asia, the Near East, the
Soviet Union, and Eastern Europe.
Herskovitss importuning of Ford led to the foundations decision to

enlist him in 1952 as Consultant for the Foundation to convene a
conference on Africa that would consider the needs and activities by
private American voluntary agencies.
Herskovits invited fourteen

people, mostly scholars, but also three United Nations ocials and two
193
State Department ocials. Of the scholars, three were former students
of Herskovitss. Rayford Logan, representing Howard University, was
the only African American invited. Six guests were invited, including
representatives of the British and French embassies and the Belgian Of-
ce of Information; a representative of University College of Ibadan in
Nigeria; Julius G. Kiano, a Kenyan student who had just graduated from
Antioch College; and a representative of the South African Native Col-
lege in Fort Hare, South Africa.
Claude Barnett of the Associated Negro Press criticized the limited

black presence at the conference. Barnett characterized the presence of
only one African American (Logan) at the conference as representative
of the tokenism that was practiced all too often by the foundations.
Moreover, Barnett questioned the absence of Ralph Bunche and the lack
of representation for Lincoln University, a black college that had formed
an Institute of African Studies in 1950.
Herskovitswho had decided

whom to invitetold the Ford Foundation that Barnett should be ad-
vised that four Africans were present and that since the purpose of the
conference was only exploration and not planning a denite program,
the necessary representatives were there.
Former Herskovits student Jack Harris reported that Ralph Bunche

was curious and perhaps a little hurt that you had not invited him to or
informed him of the conference. Bunche suspected that he was not
invited because he was a member of the Board of the [Ford] Founda-
tion and that you [Herskovits] automatically eliminated him as a partici-
pant.
There is no record of Herskovitss response.

Herskovits prepared the conference report, which made three recom-
mendations to the Ford Foundation. First, it recommended the funding
of training and research programs for American Africanists. In this area,
the report favored strengthening centers of African research and teach-
ing, including augmenting library collections and fellowship programs,
and funding a journal of African studies. Under the proposal, major
funding would be given to Northwesterns program and a program at an
unnamed East Coast university. Lesser funding would be provided to
other university programs. Second, the report proposed exchange pro-
grams between Africa and the United States to give Americans a new
perspective on the potentialities of Africa and her peoples. Toward that
end, the conference recommended support for pre- and post-doctoral
eld research and training grants for Americans, funding for African
194
students to undertake undergraduate and graduate study in the United
States, funding for mature Africans and other residents of Africa for
observation and training in the United States, and funding of teacher
exchanges between Africa and the United States. Finally, the conference
recommended nancing eld projects to increase international good-
will and reduce internal tensions in Africa. These would include pilot
projects for community development to alleviate poverty, disease, and
illiteracy. Africans would actively participate in every facet, including
policymaking.
Herskovitss report to the Ford Foundation indicated that there were

no disagreements to record on the nal report. For the most part, Ray-
ford Logans letter to Herskovits seems to bear this out. Logan told
Herskovits, You did an excellent job of editing the report for the Ford
Foundation. We are all greatly in your debt. I feel condent that the de-
sired results will be obtained. Logan did make a few suggested changes,
many of which Herskovits accepted. Herskovits, however, rejected Lo-
gans request to step up the amount proposed for the other universities
from $20,000 to $30,000.
Herskovitss leadership of the Ford Foundation Conference on Africa

and the recommendation that Ford nance a major African studies pro-
gram at Northwestern set the stage for just that event.
The Ford Foun-

dation decided that in addition to funding individual fellowships, it
would nance university programs in African studies so that young re-
searchers could get proper training and mature scholars could continue
their careers.
On the Ford Foundations suggestion, Herskovits sub-

mitted a formal request for a ve-year grant of between $200,000 and
$250,000. The grant would be used primarily for faculty research, train-
ing fellowships, library development, visiting lecturers, and eld re-
search fellowships.
In 1954 the Ford Foundation announced its rst

grants to African studies programs. Northwestern received a ve-year
grant for $235,000, while Boston University, which had started its pro-
gram the previous year, received a $200,000 grant for the same period.
Howard Universitys African studies program received $29,000 from

1954 to 1957.
The Ford Foundation became the most important institution in cre-

ating and developing the key area studies programs, and specically
African studies programs, in the United States. From 1959 to 1963 the
foundation provided about $26 million for area studies and language
195
programs at fteen schools, including Northwestern.
As Edward Ber-
man has observed, By the mid-1960s the Ford Foundation had allocated
the staggering sum of $138 million to a limited number of universities
for the training of foreign-area and international-aairs specialists.
Ford also became the key foundation supporting the development of

African studies programs. From 1954 to 1974 Ford gave $20 million to
African studies programs and to young scholars for eldwork in Africa
through the Foreign Area Fellowships.
A signicant number of these

awards went to Northwesterns students. For instance, in May 1955
three of the fourteen Ford Foundation grants for African research and
study went to Northwestern students.
The Ford Foundations support for African studies transformed the

discipline. With Ford funding, Northwesterns program expanded, while
new African studies programs were established throughout the coun-
try.
From 1953 to 1961 ten new African studies programs or cen-

ters were created, and by 1967 there were about forty African studies
programs and centers.
By 1955 growth in the eld was evidenced

by the large number of institutionsNorthwestern, Boston Univer-
sity, Howard University, the Library of Congress, Roosevelt University
(formerly Roosevelt College), Stanford University, and Yale Univer-
sityrepresented at a Conference of African Area Study Centers at
Northwestern.
Meanwhile, Herskovits played a leading role in the establishment and

the early development of the asa. He chaired the 1955 Conference of
African Area Study Centers, which decided to create a journal for Afri-
can studies and an American Society of African Studies.
These goals
reached fruition with the founding of the asa in 1957 and the publica-
tion of the rst issue of the African Studies Bulletin (later replaced by the
African Studies Review) in 1958.
At the 1957 conference, which was

nanced by the Carnegie Corporation, Herskovits was named the associ-
ations rst president, and thirty-six leading Africanists, including foun-
dation and government ocials as well as academics, joined as charter
members.
The Ford Foundation provided an initial grant of $25,000

to support the rst two years of the asas operations.
In 1958 the rst meeting of the asa was held at Northwestern Uni-
versity with about 175 attendees, including political scientists, lawyers,
sociologists, economists, anthropologists, geographers, engineers, and
196
educators primarily interested in sub-Saharan Africa.
The asa grew

rapidly; by 1959 it had 597 members and by 1966, 1,400 members.
The early years of the asa were not without controversy. The inclusion
of foundation and government ocials as charter members of the asa
was viewed by some as an indication that political considerations, not
scholarship, would be paramount. Anthropologist Elliot Skinner has
pointed out that the founding members of the asa appeared to see
themselves as intellectually neutral scholars, and not American citizens
who had a clear interest in Africa. Certainly the twelve of them who
came from the Department of State, from the United States Information
Agency, from the United Nations, from the Carnegie Corporation, and
from missionary societies must have known that the asa would involve
more than scholarship.
In his presidential address to the rst asa meeting, Herskovits sug-

gested either naively or disingenuously that Americans were specially
placed to undertake dispassionate work on Africa.
He claimed that
since Americans were removed in space from the African scene and
had no territorial commitments in Africa, we come easily by a certain
physical and psychological distance from the problems we study that . . .
bring[s] us naturally to a heightened degree of objectivity.
As Elliot
Skinner has observed, this conception was fraught with faulty assump-
tions. While the United States is physically distant from Africa, its psy-
chological distance was undercut by American involvement in the Cold
War. Moreover, Skinner wonder[ed] . . . whether the asa president
realized that there were blacks in the audience who had physical if not
psychological ties to Africa, and who would always have a commitment
to that continent because, like it or not, Africa was in their skins. I also
wondered what myopia blinded him to the fact that as a white American
he was a citizen of a country with a fatal aw for continuing to discrimi-
nate against people with African skins. No commitments?
Nonetheless, after a decade of operation, Northwesterns program

could point to signicant achievements. Twenty-ve students and several
faculty members had carried out research in fteen African countries.
Twelve courses were taught in six departments: anthropology, econom-

ics, geography, history, political science, and civil engineering. The an-
thropology department oered three courses: The Peoples of Africa,
The Native Under Colonial Rule, and Seminar in African Ethnol-
ogy.
Unlike many of the other African studies programs, which were

197
more oriented toward practical problem solving or government service,
Northwesterns program was dedicated to the aim of producing cre-
ative scholars who would be able to deal with a dynamic African situa-
tion in various disciplines.
In addition, Herskovits helped integrate blacks into the program and

played a leading role in bringing black Africans to the United States
as professors and students. Herskovits invited many visiting professors
from Africa to teach at Northwestern. In 1954 Gold Coast legislator and
anthropologist Ko A. Busia, who later served as prime minister of
Ghana, taught at Northwestern.
Kenneth O. Dike, pioneer African

historian and vice principal of the University College of Ibadan, Nigeria,
was a visiting history professor at Northwestern in 1958.
In 1946
Herskovits helped create the Committee on African Students in North
America under the auspices of the geb and served as a charter member.
In that capacity, he persuaded the committee to include native Africans
on the student selection committees.
He used Northwesterns African

studies program to help several black Africans get Ph.D.s. Northwest-
erns rst African Ph.D., Nigerian economist Pius Nwabufo Charles
Okigbo (19242000), received his degree in economics in 1956.
Edu-
ardo Mondlane (19201969), a leader of the independence movement
in Mozambique, received his Ph.D. in sociology from Northwestern in
1961. Mondlanes admission to graduate study and his receipt of a Car-
negie Corporation fellowship was facilitated in part by Herskovitss
strongly supportive letter of recommendation.
The large increase dur-

ing the postwar era in the number of African students at American uni-
versities, primarily in the Midwest, can be partially attributed to Hersko-
vitss actions.
Notwithstanding his support for African students, several scholars

have accused Herskovits of limiting opportunities for African American
students in Africa. They have claimed that Herskovits resisted training
black students in African studies because he believed that they would not
be objective about African cultures due to their own African heritage.
The truth of this statement is dicult to discern. Logic would seem to
argue against it. Nobody argues that Herskovits discouraged African
students from studying Africa. If African American students were biased
because of their African heritage, then African students would be more
so. Nonetheless, as both Herskovits boosters and critics agree, there was
198
a generally held view that the best ethnography needed outsiders to
do it.
There is no question that Herskovits had few black American students

during the 1950s and 1960s who did research in Africa. But Herskovits
did encourage several black students and scholars to conduct research in
Africa. As mentioned earlier, Herskovits taught Ralph Bunche and en-
couraged him to get a fellowship to do research in southern and eastern
Africa as an ssrc fellow in 193637. Herskovitss student Johnnetta B.
Cole did research during the early 1960s in Liberia. Moreover, Cole has
written that Herskovits had a special place in his heart for African Ameri-
can students.
There were several factors that served to limit black students enter-
ing anthropology and African studies at Northwestern, independent of
Herskovitss inuence. St. Clair Drake, who maintained that Herskovits
never attempted to recruit and train Afro-Americans, has also observed
that during the Great Depression, black students in the social sciences
were more inclined to concentrate on sociology or economics than in
what seemed to be a luxury eldanthropologyeven when they felt
that some of the work of white scholars was valuable.
Drake recalled
that during the 1930s, black students wanted to enter a eld, like sociol-
ogy, that they believed was relevant to problems faced by African Ameri-
cans. Moreover, blacks eschewed anthropology because the opportuni-
ties for black anthropologists were severely limited. Most black colleges
had no anthropology department, while white colleges and agencies such
as the Bureau of Indian Aairs or the Bureau of American Ethnology
rarely hired black scholars.
The accusation that Herskovits may have

suggested that African American students would not be objective about
African cultures may have some basis in the belief of many at that time
that one should be an outsider to maintain ones objectivity.
Blacks also generally eschewed African studies before the 1960s be-
cause of their desire to distance themselves from Africa, which many
believed was backward and uncivilized.
This negative perception of

Africa, also held by most whites, was sustained by the pejorative depic-
tion of Africans in American books, schools, and movies, as well as in the
media. Era Belle Thompson, an African American editor, recalled her
own negative perception of Africa in a book she published in 1954: Had
anyone called me an African I would have been indignant. This was in
199
great part because the schools and the media made a shambles of my
African background.
In 1943 British Africanist Edwin Smith noted

that few American blacks were interested in Africa. When he met Wil-
liam Leo Hansberry of Howard, he called him the rst enthusiastic
Negro Africanist I have encountered.
Other factors limited African American participation in African stud-

ies at Northwestern. Until the late 1940s Northwesterns anthropology
department was quite small, and there was little funding available for any
graduate students.
Herskovits student Simon Ottenberg recalled that

colonial regimes would have denied visas to African Americans. In Nige-
ria in 195153, with a few elite exceptions, black Africans were denied
access to white housing and other white facilities. In addition, the colo-
nials were often skeptical of any Americans who they perceived as antag-
onistic toward colonialism.
Perhaps if Herskovits sent over black stu-

dents, this would have jeopardized all Herskovits students from having
access to colonial African societies.
In 1961 Northwesterns program was assured of long-term survival and
expansion when the Ford Foundation approved a ten-year grant for
$1,300,000. As part of this grant, Herskovits was appointed to the rst
endowed chair of African studies in the United States.
Funding was
also provided for visiting international professors, faculty research, re-
search fellowships and scholarships, and sta salaries in economics, his-
tory, art, and linguistics.
Herskovitss promotion of African studies was one of his greatest

successes. During the prewar era he helped establish the eld as a legiti-
mate area of study for American anthropologists. In the postwar era, in a
political and intellectual climate that supported the development of area
studies programs, Herskovits helped ensure that African studies would
be accorded its proper place in American universities. His advocacy for
African studies at Northwestern and other universitieshis wartime
critique of Fisk and the University of Pennsylvania notwithstanding
led to substantial growth for the discipline. As a result, Herskovits stu-
dent Robert A. Lystad could report in 1966 that thirty-eight colleges and
universities had established centers of African studies.
Paradoxically, Herskovitss success in placing African studies on a rm

footing was largely due to the fact that the Cold War provided the
rationale for the foundations and the government to sink millions of
200
dollars into creating experts on Africa. While he capitalized on this Cold
War largesse, Herskovits sought to convince American policymakers
that the best policyfor the United States and for Africarequired
making decisions in concert with African ocials based on what best
served Africa rather than based on Cold War calculations.
201
chapter seven
Foreign Policy Critic
It will be interesting to get the reaction to my rst attempt to work in the area
of every day aairs.Melville J. Herskovits to Horace Kallen, October 21,
1959
H
erskovits s prominence as Americas foremost scholar
of Africa and head of its most celebrated African studies pro-
gram thrust him into the role of foreign policy analyst dur-
ing and after World War II. An outspoken advocate for African self-
determination, Herskovits sought to encourage Africans and Americans
to respect their cultural dierences, and he wanted to provide a basis
for American aid rooted in African needs. But most American policy-
makers and foundation ocials had a dierent vision for African studies
programs. They sought to train specialists in international studies who
could provide the expertise needed to defend American security interests
in the context of the Cold War. While American policymakers sometimes
expressed rhetorical support for African self-government, policy initia-
tives generally opposed or ignored African independence movements.
During World War II the United States supported the reestablishment of
French colonial rule over North Africa. In the 1950s and 1960s Cold War
calculations drove American policy in Africa. At rst the Eisenhower
administration considered Africa of minor importance, deferring to
Americas nato allies in making decisions about Africa. As indepen-
dence movements in Africa began to achieve success during the second
Eisenhower term, American policymakers sought to ensure that anti-
Communists would lead the new states.
While Herskovits promoted

and beneted from the rise of area studies, he sharply criticized Cold War
political strategies that promoted this development. Consequently, he
attacked the United Statess Africa policy. He rejected Cold Warbased
202
foreign policy because he believed that it would prop up imperialist
regimes in Africa and threaten international peace. Herskovits sought to
make sure that policy decisions on Africa were based on the needs of
Africa as well as those of the United States and its allies. Indeed, he
believed that such an approach would yield benets for both Africa and
the United States. During the 1950s Herskovits became increasingly
critical of Americas Cold War policies in Africa. Because his criticism
was ignored, African independence was delayed, and the continents
political and economic problems were exacerbated.
The Second World War taught Herskovits that scholarship and activism
could not always remain separate. The wartime collapse of France, Hol-
land, and Belgium and the resulting destabilization of European colonial
control of Africa compelled Herskovits, as the foremost American expert
on Africa, to speak out on U.S. policy and take an advisory role with the
government.
I have rather hated to get into this controversial eld of

colonial problems, but sooner or later somebody has to speak for the
native, Herskovits told a colleague in 1944.
Moreover, he maintained
that the anthropologist is best tted to see the strains and stresses of
underprivileged groups, or of natives who no longer control their own
lives. . . . Where . . . he is in a position to aid in obtaining for the na-
tives he knows some reinstatement of the human rights they have been
deprived of, he customarily welcomes the opportunity.
Thus he dis-
avowed his longtime endorsement of detached scholarship wherein he
rejected a policy role for scholars as compromising ones objectivity. In a
1948 speech to University of Illinois medical students, Herskovits re-
ected his altered view, advising the students that a scientists respon-
sibility does not end with unearthing new facts. He has an obligation to
society. He must come out of his ivory tower and help put the informa-
tion to use.
Although Herskovits combined scholarship and advocacy

on international issues, he refrained from doing so on domestic issues.
He never addressed this inconsistency.
During the war Herskovits was impressed by the emerging nationalist
movements against European colonialism in Asia and Africa and spoke
out for self-determination for subject peoples. Appalled at the failure of
the West to recognize the development of nationalism, he told a col-
league that history is going to record the fact that the great blind spot in
203
our day was taking for granted the acceptance by native peoples of for-
eign domination.
Herskovits publicized his views in hopes of inuencing the colonial

powers and the United States to support a process that would lead to
independence for the colonies. In his 1943 report for Northwesterns
Committee on Post-War International Problems, entitled Problem IX,
Colonies and Dependent Areas, and in a 1944 article for Foreign Aairs,
entitled Native Self-Government, which he sent to Acting Secretary of
State Edward Stettinius, he detailed his proposals.
Herskovitss beliefs
in cultural pluralism and cultural relativism undergirded his views on
relations between the West and dependent areas. He rejected the widely
held view that African cultures were inferior to Western cultures, oer-
ing numerous examples of African societies with complex political and
social structures, some autocratic and others democratic, predating the
colonial era. Herskovits also emphasized the fact that Africans, like other
peoples, remained condent in their own systems and cultures and op-
posed political and social changes imposed from the outside.
He as-
serted that native peoples over all the world have a degree of compe-
tence for self-government and have the right to live in terms of their
own traditional ways of life.
At the same time, the anthropologist recognized the practical prob-

lems of an increasingly intertwined world. Herskovits insisted that
all peoples [must be integrated] into a world political and economic
system. This emerging world order must incorporate the cultures of
non-Western peoples and not be based simply on the Euro-American
model. This should be accomplished by inducing every group, through
cooperative procedures, to adapt its particular ways of life to the require-
ments of the larger orientation and thus gain for themselves the advan-
tages that will accrue to them as a result of this.
Anthropologists
cultural sensitivity meant that they could play an important role in easing
this transition by helping to adapt these changes to traditional ways.
In
addition, there should be native input in all decision-making about pro-
spective changes.
Herskovits proposed an orderly transition based on a set timetable

leading to independence for African colonies. Necessary changes to
establish autonomy should be induced, not imposed.
He noted that
although European imperialism had brought some benets to Euro-
pean coloniessanitation, security, new goodsthe dependent peoples
204
strongly desired independence. Because colonialism had transformed
the political landscape and suppressed traditional political structures,
an abrupt withdrawal of the colonial powers . . . would result in
chaos.
The rst step toward independence required the immediate

implementation of local autonomy in politics, economics, marriage, reli-
gion, and morality. Herskovits recommended that an international orga-
nization protect colonial peoples cultures during this period. Colonial
administrators should be placed under international regulation, and in-
digenous peoples should have the right to voice their concerns. To en-
sure a collaborative process, the imperial powers and the dependent
peoples must be educated to understand each others cultural and politi-
cal perspectives. In this way, Herskovits reproved those who argued that
Africans alone required education as a prerequisite for independence.
During the latter part of the Second World War Herskovits spoke out
forcefully against colonialism on the radio and in popular magazines.
In a 1944 letter to the New Republic, he criticized an article, suused with

paternalism and derogatory statements toward Africans, in which the
author argued for a multinational organization of Western countries to
preside over the colonial transition to independence. Herskovits insisted
that any plan for African independence must take into account what
Africans wanted. He argued that freedom for Africans, as for all people,
meant [f]reedom for all men and women to live their lives in their own
ways, and in terms of those ways of life, to govern themselves. More-
over, Herskovits reproved the author for describing West Africa prior to
the colonial era as being in an early stage of barbarism.
As evidence
that Herskovits did, as he said, approach the colonial system from . . .
[the perspective] of the native peoples who are ruled by it, a Nige-
rian student at the University of Chicago praised Herskovitss position.
Mbono Ojikwe wrote to Herskovits, On behalf of the oppressed people
of Nigeria and other colonies may I thank you for helping us in the ght
against imperialism and distortion of facts about us.
In July 1945
Herskovits lauded W. E. B. Du Boiss Color and Democracy: Colonies and
Peace for its powerful argument that the realization of self-determination
for colonized peoples would increase the prospects for international
peace in the postwar era.
Herskovitss belief that Africas needs should take precedence in Amer-

ican foreign policy calculations brought him into conict with Americas
Africa policy during the postwar era. With the emergence of the Cold
205
War during the late 1940s, the United States embraced a politics of
preventive development in which policymakers sought to improve liv-
ing conditions in Africa and Asia to limit the attractiveness of Commu-
nism and thus prevent the development of Communist regimes. During
the Anglo-American Pentagon Talks of 1947, convened to reconsider
policies toward Africa and the Middle East, British and American ocials
agreed to support policies to improve living standards in these regions.
These ocials hoped that such policies would reduce general dissatisfac-
tion and thus limit the inuence of Communist ideology and the Soviet
Union. Toward these ends, American ocials approved technical aid
and assistance programs, introduced Point IV [a foreign aid program] in
1949, and stressed the importance of cultivating pro-American elites.
The U.S. government encouraged the emergence of competent leaders,

relatively well-disposed to the West, through programs designed for this
purpose, including, where possible a conscious, though perhaps covert,
eort to cultivate and aid such potential leaders.
Even as Herskovits embraced an active engagement with govern-

ment, he sought to protect his intellectual independence. Thus, while he
sought to inuence American foreign policy, he refused to accept gov-
ernment assistance for Northwesterns African studies program, relying
instead on philanthropic foundations in nancing many of his eld trips.
Herskovits took this stance because he did not believe that the accep-
tance of foundation money compromised his scholarly independence,
but he did believe that the acceptance of government funding would
compromise the programs independence and might alter its priori-
ties, which were independent research and scholarly training. Therefore
Herskovits refused to train government ocials for the Ph.D.
In addition, unlike many social scientists, Herskovits did not pursue

government service during the 1950s. This stand distinguished him from
those who were enticed to government service by their anti-Soviet be-
liefs and the opportunity to gain federal funding and increase their status
by working on huge government research programs. The governments
development projects oered a a well-funded laboratoryfrequently
the only well-funded laboratory during the early Cold War yearsfor
the study of displaced and disappearing cultures.
Furthermore, as
Christopher Simpson has shown, encouraged by the promise of re-
formist political administrations, many of the worlds most sophisti-
cated social scientists made ideological oensives and military and in-
206
telligence projects integral to their day-to-day work.
For instance,
in Project Troy, numerous social scientists received federal government
nancing to hold a series of meetings at the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology during 1950 and 1951 in an attempt to ght the Cold War by
producing and disseminating anti-Soviet propaganda behind the Iron
Curtain.
Herskovits did, however, invite major and minor government ocials

to participate in seminars organized by Northwesterns African studies
program. At the 1951 Institute on Contemporary Africa, Assistant Secre-
tary of State for Near Eastern, South Asian and African Aairs George C.
McGhee delivered a speech entitled Africas Role in the Free World
Today.
McGhee argued that immediate independence for African col-

onies would do more harm than good because the primitive, unedu-
cated peoples would be exploited by indigenous leaders, unrestrained
by the civil standards that come with widespread education. In addi-
tion, he invoked Cold War politics when he maintained that premature
independence would endanger . . . the security of the free world.
Herskovits balanced the views of U.S. government ocials by inviting

African nationalists to speak at the Northwestern seminars. In 1950,
for example, Nnamdi Azikiwe, a leading Nigerian nationalist who later
served as Nigerias rst president, lectured on the Nigerian nationalist
movement.
About a year later Eduardo C. Mondlane, who would play

a key role in the movement for independence in Mozambique, spoke at
Northwesterns Africa seminar.
Tom Mboya, a Kenyan nationalist, also

lectured at Northwestern during the 1950s.
The federal government provided substantial funding to area studies

programs after the adoption of the National Defense Education Act
(ndea) in 1958, passed in response to the Soviet Unions successful
launching of the rst space satellite, Sputnik. Title VI of the ndea -
nanced the study of uncommon languages and the peoples who spoke
those languages. This legislation greatly expanded African studies pro-
grams and made many of these programs government-university part-
nerships. In 1957 ucla, Michigan State University, Howard University,
Duquesne University, and Syracuse University became Language and
Area Centers of the United States Oce of Education.
Prior to ndea
funding, only Howard University, the Foreign Service Institute, and
four missionary colleges taught African languages. As the programs at
Northwestern and Boston University did not teach any African lan-
207
guages, they were ineligible for funding. Herskovits had long opposed
training in African languages as an inecient use of resources. Resources
aside, Herskovitss position on African languages appears to contradict
his own position on the importance of understanding indigenous peo-
ples from their own perspective. But he maintained that linguistics train-
ing provided the tools to deal more eectively with the numerous lan-
guages in Africa.
Nonetheless, Herskovitss African-centered perspective distinguished

him from many liberal academics and policymakers. Informed by his
cultural relativism and his extensive study of African culture, Herskovits
rejected the idea that African traditions should be disregarded. By con-
trast, many liberals were troubled . . . by the parochialism of African
societies (meaning, in fact, the parochialism of individual Africans they
talked to.)
They saw justice and progress as dependent on the tri-

umph of rationality over superstition.
For them, tradition was the

enemy of progress. In this way, many liberals devalued African traditions
and history.
Herskovits, however, took just the opposite position, ar-

guing that African cultures deserved the same respect as Western cul-
tures. He opposed the unfortunate tendency of Europeans to think in
terms of Africa and Africans having to adjust themselves to European
ways. Herskovits argued that Americas Africa policy would be success-
ful only to the extent that it was based on respect for African cultures.
Herskovits had long supported the development of indigenous in-

stitutions. Three decades earlier he had attacked a Phelps-Stokes Fund
report, prepared by Thomas Jesse Jones, that sought to impose educa-
tion policies and systems on Africa. Joness report, Education in Africa,
based on two studies of African education, recommended that the
greater part of the American Negro educational system could be trans-
planted to Africa. African education would consist of training in health
and sanitation; agriculture, industry, and elementary education; safety in
the home; and healthful recreation. Although most American educa-
tors praised these recommendations, Herskovits, like W. E. B. Du Bois
and Carter G. Woodson, disapproved. Herskovits argued against the use
of American educational methods in Africa. Rather, African methods
should be used. Methods should not be imposed from the outside.
Like the majority of liberal intellectuals, Herskovits strongly sup-

ported African economic development and American assistance to Af-
rica. But unlike many other liberals, he insisted that American o-
208
cials pursue development based on knowledge and respect for African
cultures. Herskovits asserted that the central problem for African-
European relations was how to assure to a world economy the util-
ization of the natural and human potentialities of Africa, while at the
same time, preserving to the native peoples the greatest possible measure
of political, social, and cultural autonomy, and assuring that, in being
brought ever more intimately into contact with this world economy,
their lives will not be demoralized.
Toward these ends, in April 1950

Herskovits advised the assistant secretary of state for economic aairs
that short-term intensive courses by anthropologists could make an im-
portant contribution to the Point IV program by teaching ocials the
validity of the ways of life of other peoples, so they could use this
understanding in implementing changes. Herskovits had used this tech-
nique with success during his stint with the Civil Aairs Training Pro-
gram when he taught American Occupation ocers to respect Japanese
culture.
In February 1951 Herskovits attended the ssrcs Second Con-

ference on Social Science Problems of Point IV and again spoke out in
favor of these ideas.
Herskovitss defense of indigenous African traditions impelled him to

back the formation of the Paris-based journal, Prsence Africaine, which
was founded by several proponents of Negritude, the movement by
French-speaking Africans to spread traditional African values and tradi-
tions.
In 1956 Herskovits sent a message of support to the rst world

conference of black writers and artists, held in Paris under the auspices
of Prsence Africaine. He reiterated his view that in movements toward
change, the strong cultural values of the African should not be overshad-
owed by the values of the outside world.
Indeed, six years later, Aim

Csaire, a West Indian poet and founder of the Negritude movement,
told Herskovits, But you yourself are one of the architects of Negri-
tude! Read The Myth of the Negro Past. There it is!
Just as in the debate on black culture and African survivals, Hersko-

vitss views conicted with those of some African American intellectuals.
Distinguished black author Richard Wright spoke at the Prsence Afri-
caine conference and rejected the views propounded by Herskovits and
most other participants. Wright argued that Western-backed industrial
development should take precedence over the maintenance or develop-
ment of indigenous traditions, values, and institutions. His statement
enraged many of the participants.
Wrights rejection of African tradi-

209
tions paralleled his own views on black culture in the United States. He
accepted the view that blacks had been stripped of their culture during
the Middle Passage and that African American culture was a pathological
version of white culture.
At a time when cultural relativism was under attack, Herskovits em-

ployed this concept in an attempt to inuence the formulation of the
United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights (udhr) in
1947. The Second World War and the ght against Nazism had caused
many to question cultural relativism. As John Diggins has observed, the
rise of totalitarianism forced intellectuals and scholars to consider that
certain behavior must be judged by standards that are universal rather
than conditional, and for many it would be the eighteenth-century En-
lightenment and its ideals of liberty and equality.
Consequently, a
number of intellectuals, including anthropologist Ruth Benedict, began
to distance themselves from their earlier relativism. In the context of
Nazi German aggression in Europe, Benedict moderated the relativist
position she had advocated in Patterns of Culture (1934). In that work,
Benedict had maintained that though cultures might dier, all were
equally valid patterns of life.
Therefore she argued that wisdom

consists in a greatly increased tolerance toward their divergencies.
During the early 1940s, however, Benedict changed her emphasis. For
Benedict, relativism made sense as a conceptual framework for defend-
ing racial equality and cultural pluralism in a democratic culture. But in
the context of Nazi aggression, she felt it was necessary to go beyond
relativity to discover the ways and means of social cohesion, and to nd
a common ground for cultural values in the universal human desire for
freedom.
Herskovits, however, continued to defend relativism as a philosophy

for all times, even during the Second World War. Cultural relativism did
not preclude the use of warfare in self-defense. Nor did it mean that a
culture should abandon its own values. Self-defense was warranted when
ones culture and society were under attack, as in the cases of both Nazi
aggression and Western imperialism. Herskovits maintained that in reac-
tion to Japanese and German aggression, America suered from demor-
alization just like Africans and Asians had as a result of Western imperial-
ist expansion. Because insiders saw great value in their own culture, the
threat or the actuality of invasion was doubly demoralizing, as an outside
force sought to replace ones culture. Herskovits argued that Americans
210
should rearm their own values to meet the threat of attack. Cultural
relativism, for Herskovits, required that one culture respect the values of
another culture. But a society under attack that accepted outside domi-
nation would be practicing submission, not tolerance.
Herskovitss strong support for cultural relativism made him a natural

choice by the American Anthropological Association (aaa) to write a
memo to ensure that the udhr excluded ethnocentric values. In 1947
Herskovits prepared the aaas Statement on Human Rights, which
he submitted to Eleanor Roosevelt, chair of the uns Commission on
Human Rights. Invoking the relativist perspective, Herskovits sought to
stop the West from imposing its values on the less powerful countries of
the world, particularly those in Africa and Asia. Therefore he maintained
that a statement on human rights could not be limited to the values of
Euro-American culture but must respect the values of all cultures. Cul-
tures could not and should not be judged by outsiders, nor could cul-
tures be ranked in a hierarchy. Herskovits cautioned against philosophi-
cal systems that have stressed absolutes in the realm of values and ends.
The racial and cultural chauvinism of Western Europe had provided the
justication for colonization and subjection of Asian and African peo-
ples, with the resulting disintegration of human rights among the peo-
ples over whom hegemony has been established.
Herskovits oered three propositions, all part of a cultural relativist

perspective.
First, certain assumptions would need to be accepted

based on scientic evidence. Research had demonstrated that cultural
dierences were determined by historic forces, not biological ones.
The only criterion for a successful culture was whether it had survived to
the present. Second, Herskovits asserted, [r]espect for dierences be-
tween cultures is validated by the scientic fact that no technique of
qualitatively evaluating cultures has been discovered. Third, [s]tan-
dards and values are relative to the culture from which they derive so that
any attempt to formulate postulates that grow out of the beliefs or moral
codes of one culture must to that extent detract from the applicability of
any Declaration of Human Rights to mankind as a whole.
Then Herskovits suggested that in establishing global standards of

freedom and justice, the United Nations must do so based on the
principle that man is free only when he lives as his society denes free-
dom, that his rights are those he recognizes as a member of his society.
For Herskovits, freedom was a concept that was present in all cul-
211
tures, but the meaning of freedom varied across cultures. Thus he distin-
guished between the universal presence of a concept of freedom in all
cultures and the lack of uniform agreement on what freedom meant to
dierent cultures. The udhr, he insisted, must guarantee the right of
men to live in terms of their own traditions.
Herskovits sought to deect anticipated criticism that toleration of

cultural dierences meant toleration of such brutal systems as Nazism.
He asserted that when political systems excluded citizen participation or
sanctioned invasions of neighboring countries, then underlying cultural
values may be called on to bring the peoples of such states to a realization
of the consequences of the acts of their governments, and thus enforce a
brake upon discrimination and conquest. Here Herskovits sought to
distinguish a countrys political system from its culture. Nazism was not
equivalent to German culture. Government was only one aspect of a
peoples culture, and thus toleration of another peoples culture did not
mean respect for a government that brutalized its people or invaded its
neighbors.
Despite his eorts to disarm his critics, or perhaps because of them,

Herskovitss statement on human rights aroused tremendous contro-
versy among anthropologists. A number of colleagues, notably Robert
Redeld, argued that Herskovits had contradicted his own relativistic
philosophy by proposing tolerance as a world value. In doing so, they
asserted, Herskovits was imposing an American value on other cul-
tures.
Similarly, Julian Steward argued that the statement contradicted

itself by expressing tolerance as a value but rejecting any value judg-
ments. Moreover, Steward could not personally sanction toleration of
Nazism, social castes in India, or racial castes in America. He asserted,
Either we tolerate everything, and keep hands o, or we ght intoler-
ance and conquestpolitical and economic as well as militaryin all
their forms. Therefore he argued that the aaa, as an organization,
should avoid declarations of human rights because in doing so, it can
come perilously close to advocacy of American ideological imperialism
by proposing an American value of toleration to other cultures.
Homer
Barnett maintained that the aaa had stepped beyond its role as a scien-
tic organization by making a statement about rights that were purely
subjective and thus were outside its purview. Barnett held to a strict view
of objectivity whereby pronouncements of policy or ways to solve prob-
lems would compromise that objectivity. Anthropologists could not at
212
the same time be moralists (or policy makers) and scientists. He also
criticized the statement that when governments deny citizens the right
of participation in their government, or seek to conquer weaker peoples,
underlying cultural values may be called on to bring the peoples of such
states to a realization of the consequences of the actions of their govern-
ments, and thus force a brake upon discrimination and conquest. This
would imply that outsiders would intervene to help impose a value,
seemingly the opposite of tolerance.
John Bennett backed the statement on human rights and criticized

those who assumed that science could be value free. All scientists have
values to which they adhere. If scientists refuse to take a stand on an
issue, they would have an impact just as if they had taken a stand. He
argued that science could not be separated from social life and that
the implications of scientic research were inescapable. Anthropologists
could not just retire from the scene after issuing their research. They
were citizens as well as scientists; whether or not they took a position,
they would have an impact.
Ralph L. Beals, chair of the Department of Anthropology and Sociol-

ogy at ucla, told Herskovits that his statement meant that a fascist
movement in a particular country should be allowed to continue as long
as it did not attempt to expand beyond its borders.
Herskovits re-
sponded, The question you raise about the un document is one that has
occurred to many people. It is not an easy question to answer. The
position we take, though, is that tolerance is a reciprocal matter. From
this it follows that any aggression by one people that threatens the way of
life of another, should be resisted. . . . Of course, we must distinguish
governments from total cultures of which they are a part. But if we deny
to any people the right to run their own aairs, that gives any people the
right to deny us the same thing. Herskovitss main concern was with the
weaker peoples of the world. He told Beals that we are asking the
United Nations to . . . recognize the validity of the ways of life of peoples
who are powerless to resist encroachments by states that have the force
to make good the imposition of foreign culture. But the preservation of
cultural autonomy, I think, does not have to be primary in all things.
Thus Herskovitss philosophy was particularly informed by his aversion
to imperialism. But when powerful countries sought to subjugate oth-
ers, as the Nazis sought to do, they were not entitled to the respect
entailed by a strictly construed cultural relativism. Herskovits realized
213
that his position was in this way questionable, but he believed that the
paradox was inherent in relativism.
In his elaboration of cultural relativism, Herskovits was primarily in-

terested in dispelling notions of Western cultural chauvinism, which had
been used to justify Western imperialism and domination of numerous
countries in Africa and Asia. From Herskovitss perspective, growing up
in a world where indigenous cultures were dominated by more powerful
societies, the greater good was protecting the cultural values of the weak
from domination by the powerful West. A staunch anti-imperialist,
Herskovits used his inuence to chip away at the racial and cultural
arrogance of Euro-American peoples. He believed that cultural relativ-
ism and its concomitant, tolerance, would provide a corrective to the still
evident racial and cultural chauvinism that had caused much of the vio-
lence, brutality, and demoralization of the twentieth century. But Hers-
kovits was unwilling to take the next step, which would have required
the search for global values that diverse cultures could agree on.
In contrast, the udhr, adopted in 1948, armed that universal hu-
man rights did exist across cultural barriers. But the authors of the docu-
ment also accepted the anthropological value of tolerance of diverse
cultural and religious practices and beliefs as formulated by Herskovits.
Article 26 stated that education should promote understanding, toler-
ance and friendship among all nations, racial or religious groups, and
shall further the activities of the United Nations for the maintenance of
peace. But the udhr went far beyond the notion of cross-cultural toler-
ance by agreeing that there were certain universal values such as racial,
gender, religious, and cultural equality that could be embraced by all
peoples as universal human rights.
Herskovits believed that the greatest contribution a discipline like

anthropology can be, is . . . to establish a sound basis for a philosophy
that will meet the needs of a world society. Cultural relativism was the
philosophy that laid the foundation for a world society.
And that was

anthropologys and Herskovitss great contribution to international
peace. A world based on the ideals of tolerance and mutual respect for
diverse individuals and diverse cultures would have a better chance for
peace than one based on intolerance and racial and cultural chauvinism.
Herskovits maintained that the key to cultural relativism was respect for
dierences . . . mutual respect.
It was Herskovitss hope that a rela-

214
tivistic philosophy would spare the world a continuation of the brutal
racism and imperialism of the rst half of the twentieth century.
During President Dwight Eisenhowers second term, when African na-
tionalist movements were transforming the continent from colonial de-
pendencies into independent states, Herskovitsinformed by his rela-
tivist and African-centered perspectivebecame an outspoken critic
of the administrations policies, which either disregarded or deprecated
Africa. Eisenhower treated Africa as an arena in which to strengthen
American relations with its nato allies in Europe. Therefore Eisenhower
opposed the nationalist movements in Africa because he accepted the
argument of the European colonialists that these movements were insti-
gated or led by Communists. Eisenhower viewed the nationalist move-
ments and independent states as an invitation to instability and Commu-
nist inltration. Moreover, he deferred to the United Statess nato allies
on questions of aid to newly independent African states, refusing re-
quests of economic or military assistance unless the former colonial
power agreed to the request. In 1959 Eisenhower rejected the newly
independent state of Guineas requests for aid. This action convinced
Sekou Tour, the countrys leader, to accept assistance from Czechoslo-
vakia and the Soviet Union. Eisenhowers policies may have solidied
U.S.-nato relations, but they also alienated Africans.
Meanwhile, as many African countries moved toward independence

after 1955, there was a signicant increase in government, academic,
and media interest in Africa. The governments heightened interest in
Africa was shaped by concern about possible Soviet inuence in the
new states.
In this climate of increased concern about Africa, Hersko-

vitss advice that the United States should give more consideration to
Africa in its foreign policy found support. In March 1956 Herskovits
wrote to Senator Paul Douglas of Illinois to suggest the creation of an
assistant secretary of state for sub-Saharan Africa. Douglas forwarded the
suggestion to Senator J. William Fulbright, chair of the Foreign Rela-
tions Committee, who promised to consider the proposal, commenting
that it would be even more important if we could nd a way to inject a
little wisdom into the head of the Secretary of State.
Later that year

the State Department created an Oce of African Aairs, and two years
later Eisenhower appointed the rst assistant secretary of state for Afri-
can aairs.

215
During the Eisenhower administration Herskovits twice testied be-
fore the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Herskovits employed his
scholarship to counsel the senators that an eective Africa policy re-
quired respect for African cultures and peoples and support for African
independence, self-determination, and economic growth. He also chal-
lenged the dominant Cold War paradigm by advising policymakers to
reject a view of Africa as just another Cold War battleground.
In his rst appearance before the Senate Foreign Relations Com-
mittee, in 1958, Herskovits sought to give American policymakers the
African perspective, based on his longtime study of the continent. In
addition, Herskovits gently tried to steer the senators toward a more
sympathetic and knowledgeable policy concerning the emerging inde-
pendent African nations. He emphasized that policymakers needed to
understand the dynamic nature of culture contact in Africa and the tradi-
tional cultures of Africa in order to make eective decisions. Thus he told
the senators that African political institutions were developing based on
traditional forms and in adjustment to the colonial boundaries set up by
the imperial powers. Perhaps too optimistically, Herskovits noted, we
are already witnessing adjustments that make of a man a Nigerian as well
as a Yoruba or an Ibo.
Herskovits believed that with the end of colo-

nialism, however, ethnic tensions could reemerge; he did not necessarily
expect the new states to be more virtuous than other states throughout
the world.
Herskovits tried to enlighten the senators about some of the tradi-

tional political practices of West Africans. He cautioned that although
traditional politics in West Africa might appear autocratic to the West,
traditional African political institutions had democratic aspects as well.
Before rendering decisions, paramount chiefs received advice and ap-
proval from counselors, village chiefs, and the men of the villages.
Herskovits advised the senators that development aid, which he sup-

ported, must take into account traditional African practices and proceed
with African input. African farmers generally held land in common with
the members of their kinship group. In addition, many African men and
women were not accustomed to Western conceptions of regularity
in time and eort. While Africans would accept some external inu-
ences, they would reject others. In this connection, Herskovits invoked
the statement of Ghanaian president Kwame Nkrumah that African
states must establish their own personalities. Similarly, many French-
216
speaking Africans had embraced the idea of Negritude, which also ex-
pressed the belief in African values and traditions. Herskovits advised the
senators to ensure that Africans were included on planning commissions
and in decision-making roles in colonies and independent states. He also
advocated increasing the number of African exchange students to the
United States.
Finally, Herskovits told the senators that they must formulate policy
with the expectation that very shortly Africa would be predominantly
independent. He assessed the various colonial regimes in terms of their
preparations for the independence of their colonies. The anthropologist
argued that during the previous two years, Britain and France had done
best in preparing to grant independence to those colonies with small
European populations. Both France and Britain had realized that the
colonial era was ending and had expanded African participation in the
colonial governments. Herskovits asserted that the biggest problems
were in those territories with large European populations who opposed
independence, such as in British East Africa and French Algeria. Unlike
Britain and France, Belgium and Portugal were doing little to prepare
their colonies for independence. Herskovits maintained that Belgiums
paternalism, in contrast to the policies of Britain and France, faced
strong resistance from Africans, an indication of its ineectiveness.
Two months after Herskovitss testimony, in the midst of the acceler-

ating independence movements in Africa, the Senate authorized the For-
eign Relations Committee to undertake an extensive review of American
foreign policy. The committee authorized the preparation of fteen re-
ports, including one on Africa under the direction of Herskovits in his
capacity as head of Northwesterns African studies program.
In May
and June 1958, while preparing the report on Africa, Herskovits con-
vened conferences in Palo Alto, California (at Stanford University), and
in New York in which experts and prominent interested parties repre-
senting various perspectives gave their input. At the New York con-
ference, Herskovits invited, among others, historian Rayford Logan,
David Rockefeller of Chase Manhattan Bank, Claude Barnett of the
Associated Negro Press, E. Franklin Frazier (who was unable to attend),
and anthropologist (and former student) Hugh Smythe.
On August 28, 1959, Herskovits submitted his 147-page report to the

Senate Foreign Relations Committee criticizing American policy toward
Africa.
On his new role as policy analyst, Herskovits remarked to a

217
friend, I have for the rst time really stepped out of the ivory tower
having completed a Study of Africa with recommendations for an Amer-
ican policy there for the Committee on Foreign Relations of the Sen-
ate. . . . It will be interesting to get the reaction to my rst attempt to
work in the area of every day aairs.
Emphasizing his disagreement with American policy toward Africa,

Herskovits began his report by asserting, The United States has never
had a positive, dynamic policy for Africa.
Then he proceeded to attack

American policy as too often reactive to specic events or too heavily
inuenced by the needs of Europe. Herskovits also criticized American
support of the European colonial powers policy of ensuring stability by
supporting a long-drawn-out transition to independence for African ter-
ritories, based on evidence of their capacity for self-government.
In-
stead, the United States should insist that the colonial powers set clear
timetables for independence. Although he recognized Americas need to
support its nato allies, Herskovits insisted that the United States must
not permit its foreign policy to be set by Europe. This would fatally
wound Americas relations with Africa.
Echoing his 1958 testimony, Herskovits emphasized that in policy

considerations, it was absolutely essential to recognize the strength with
which traditional African cultures resisted Western institutions. Tribal
aliations, traditional rulers and political institutions, traditional coop-
erative work patterns, and African religious traditions all resisted or
modied national loyalties, parliamentary democracy, individualist eco-
nomic ideology, and Christianity.
Africans demanded that their culture

and traditions be respected. They would be active agents in determining
whether and how to adopt or reject Western ways.
It is thus of
the greatest importance for an understanding of contemporary Africa,
Herskovits argued, that we think in terms not of change, but of adjust-
ment.
Here Herskovits demonstrated his respect for African tradi-

tions and his disagreement with most liberal intellectuals, who tended to
judge indigenous beliefs as superstitions that needed to be replaced by
Enlightenment rationalism.
Herskovits asserted that it was essential that American policymakers

support racial equality in Africa and at home or risk alienating Afri-
cans and jeopardizing good relations with the continent. Therefore the
United States should support the dissolution of white-dominated re-
gimes in multiracial African territories such as South Africa, South-West
218
Africa, Tanganyika, and Southern Rhodesia. To weaken South Africas
white-dominated regime, Herskovits recommended that the United
States suspend gold purchases from South Africa and oppose World
Bank loans to South Africa.
Furthermore, the United States should

support the peaceful extension of rights to all regardless of race. Toward
this end, the United States should bar dealings by government agen-
cies with rms that practice racial discrimination and prohibit racial
discrimination by American missions with their local employees. The
United States should require American companies to prohibit racial dis-
crimination in their dealings in Africa. If they did not, they should have
to prove they had used all legal means to comply with this principle in
order to receive tax concessions.
Herskovitss recommendations regarding South Africa were consis-

tent with his longtime opposition to its racist policies and leaders. In
a 1947 speech entitled Race as a World Problem, Herskovits had called
South Africa the most racist society in the world and had character-
ized Premier J. C. Smuts as the the cruelest interracial dictator in the
world.
Moreover, on his 1957 trip to South Africapart of an eight-

month tour of twenty-four African countries to promote Northwesterns
African studies program and to establish contacts to facilitate sending
students into the eldHerskovits had tried numerous times to show
white South Africans their error in judging people based on race and also
demonstrate the impracticalities and absurdities of apartheid. In a talk to
250 white South African students, he responded to a student who ques-
tioned whether Africans could be leaders by saying, it depended on the
African, and one should not think in categories.
He also tried to per-

suade these students that by failing to allow blacks to reach their poten-
tial, the society wasted precious human resources. But the students re-
mained unconvinced.
Again and again, Herskovits wrote in his diary,

he emphasized that achievement was a function of opportunity, and
not of race. When he was told that Africans did have opportunity, he
reminded his audience of the strict racial controls imposed by the gov-
ernment.
Herskovits told another white group that integration was

inevitable, but whether it was accomplished peacefully or not depended
on what the Europeans in Africa did.
Another time Herskovits at-

tempted to get an extra copy of a book by a South African author from a
university library for the Northwestern library. The librarian told him
that they could not give one up because one was for African students and
219
one for European students. Herskovits reported, They even took it
when I asked whether they were afraid something would rub o if both
used the same copy!
He told members of the South African Bureau

for Racial Aairs (sabra) that the native areas needed more land to
support the population. When Herskovits tried to get a timetable for
change, they refused. To his query about a qualied vote for educated
Africans, sabra ocials rejected the possibility due to the potential loss
of power for whites. The ocials maintained, Morals and politics dont
mix, as they laughed o the morality issue. As a result of his experience
in South Africa, Herskovits suggested that the best way to change the
racial attitudes of white South Africans was to provide them foundation
grants to study in the United States.
In his report to the Senate, Herskovits also criticized American policy-

makers treatment of Africa as an object of the Cold War. He recom-
mended that the United States recognize the African preference for a
policy of neutrality and not press the Africans to support the West. Such
a policy would alienate Africans. Moreover, Herskovits maintained that
the United States should not mistake nationalism for Communism.
While nationalism was a powerful force in Africa, Herskovits asserted
that there was little evidence of Communist inltration in Africa.
In
making this statement, Herskovits sought to defuse the belief of con-
servative policymakers that Communists were plotting a takeover of
independent African states.
He argued that the best policy for

the United States would be to abandon a negative anti-Communism,
anti-independence policy and instead embrace a positive policy of sup-
port for independence.
Similarly, Herskovits insisted that American

aid programs should be based on African needs rather than cold war
instrumentalities.
Herskovits supported American aid for African economic develop-

ment but with the important proviso that African development should
be based on African values with African involvement in decision-making.
The United States should greatly increase appropriations for African
exchanges and educational programs of all kinds and increase loans and
grants for infrastructure, technical assistance, agricultural methods, and
health.
Herskovitss report received international recognition with varying

reactions. The New York Times agreed with Herskovitss argument that
African neutrality was good for the West and for Africa.
Africans were
220
generally supportive of Herskovitss recommendations for American
policy toward Africa. The Northwestern University newspaper reported
that W. Kanyama Chiume, publicity secretary of the nationalist African
Congress of Nyasaland, who was then meeting with Herskovits and was
a real live African revolutionary, praised Herskovitss report.
Not surprisingly, Cold Warriors assailed Herskovitss support for Af-

rican neutrality. One commentator argued that Africa must not be per-
mitted to be neutral since every defection from the Western camp into
non-alignment lessens Americas chance of surviving the Communist
challenge.
In March 1960 Herskovits testied for about two hours before the
Senate Foreign Relations Committee based on his 1959 report.
He
was impressed by how much more knowledgeable the senators were
than in his previous appearance before the committee.
In his testi-
mony, Herskovits elaborated on his report in light of recent events,
including the independence of a number of African states and the emer-
gence of ethnic conict in Ruanda, the Congo, and the Cameroons, and
he made several recommendations for American policy in Africa. These
ethnic conicts, according to Herskovits, demonstrated that African
peoples were determined not to replace European control with control
by an alien indigenous group.
Again, Herskovits recommended that the U.S. government make a

clear statement opposing the racial policies of the South African govern-
ment. He cited contradictory U.S. statements, some calling for increased
U.S.South African cooperation and others criticizing South Africas
racial policies.
Herskovits cautioned the United States against joint

aid arrangements with the European Economic Community (eec), as
Africans viewed them as evidence of a new economic imperialism by the
West. Therefore he recommended support for the United Nations Spe-
cial fund for underdeveloped countries, which was not under the con-
trol of just a few countries. In general, Herskovits opposed unilateral or
bilateral actions in Africa, preferring action under un auspices.
All aid
programs should include Africans in the planning and implementation
to avoid the imposition of external actions reminiscent of colonialism.
Thus economic cooperation should replace economic aid.
Herskovits asserted that in light of recent events, it was now even

more imperative that the recommendations in his October 1959 report
be implemented. The Congos imminent independence and develop-
221
ments in the Cameroons, Togo, South-West Africa, and the Belgian
Trust Territory of Ruanda-Urundi made it more urgent that the United
States articulate its own positive policy. The U.S. government should
stop associating itself with multiracial countries whose practices are
such that close association with them will handicap us in the current
world struggle. Otherwise, the United States risked alienating Africans.
Moreover, African leaders needed to be included in discussions relating
to Africa. The United States needed to be sensitive to African positions
and, where possible, help resolve conicts peacefully. Herskovits con-
cluded his testimony by declaring that, however dicult, the habit of
thinking colonially must be given over if the new countries are to be
convinced that aid programs are not motivated by concerns of continu-
ing control over their destinies.
Following Herskovitss remarks, Assistant Secretary of State for Afri-

can Aairs Joseph Satterthwaite testied, expressing general agreement
with many of Herskovitss recommendations but disagreeing on some
key points. Satterthwaite rejected the notion that African countries could
remain outside of Cold War questions. He also resisted Herskovitss call
for set timetables for independence for African colonies. Finally, Satter-
thwaite criticized Herskovitss attack on South Africas racial policies. The
assistant secretary maintained that it would be inappropriate for the U.S.
government to require American corporations operating in Africa to re-
pudiate the laws of the country in which they operated, even if those laws
required racial discrimination.
He told the Senate Foreign Relations

Committee that a government was simply not free to make gratuitous
statements on the internal aairs of a foreign country.
Satterthwaite, a
conservative diplomat, also opposed an American get-tough policy on
South Africa during the Kennedy administration when he served as
American ambassador to South Africa.
Less than a week after Herskovitss testimony and Satterthwaites criti-

cism, South African police opened re on hundreds of black demonstra-
tors who were peacefully protesting the pass laws of the Nationalist
regime at Sharpeville. More than sixty were killed and over two hundred
wounded. In the wake of the Sharpeville massacre and adverse reaction
to Satterthwaites remarks, the State Department issued a statement con-
demning the violent actions of the South African government and af-
rming the right of peaceful protest. But Herskovitss policy recommen-
dations on South Africa were not implemented.

222
In the Eisenhower administrations nal year, during which several
African countries won their independence, Herskovits continued to
speak out on Americas policies in Africa. When the Belgians granted
independence to the Congo but sought to keep eective control, a monu-
mental crisis ensued. After Congolese troops rebelled against the Belgian
troops remaining in the Congo, Belgian paratroopers killed hundreds of
the Congolese. Herskovits called for United Nations intervention. The
Congolese government, led by President Joseph Kasavubu and Premier
Patrice Lumumba, requested American military assistance, but Eisen-
hower turned down the request and recommended instead that the
Congo ask the United Nations for assistance. With American and Soviet
support, the un Security Council authorized a un peacekeeping force
and demanded that Belgian troops withdraw.
The Belgians refused

and helped the mineral-rich Katanga province, whose mining operations
were controlled by a Belgian company, secede from the Congo. Despite
the U.S. embassys reports that the key to resolving the conict was get-
ting Belgian withdrawal, the Eisenhower administration believed that
Lumumba was the cause of the chaos. Central Intelligence Agency (cia)
director Allen Dulles maintained that the Communists controlled Lu-
mumba.
Herskovits, who had visited the Congo in 1955 and 1957,

rejected Dulless view and spoke out in favor of Lumumba.
Three
months after the beginning of the crisis, Herskovits explained that
most West African leaders, even in Nigeria, base their approach to the
[Congo] situation on the question of legitimacy, and this is why they
have been supporting Lumumba.
In addition, Herskovits dismissed

the reports that Lumumba was a Communist. Herskovits believed that
the Congo crisis was due in part to the fact that the Congolese were not
prepared for independence when the Belgians left. He opposed uni-
lateral American action, as it would be fatal to this countrys standing
in Africa. Instead, he supported United Nations action.
Nevertheless, after the Soviets gave material and technical assistance

to Lumumba, Eisenhower apparently ordered his assassination.
The
cia and Belgian intelligence masterminded a coup led by Colonel Joseph
Mobutu that overthrew Lumumba and ordered the withdrawal of the
Soviets. Ultimately, Lumumba was killed after escaping connement.
The conict between Katanga and the Congo dragged on into 1963
before un troops nally prevailed and the Congo was reunied.

223
The Congo crisis reveals the dierences between Herskovitss ap-
proach to Africa and that of Eisenhower. Eisenhower saw the conict
in the Congo as a Cold War crisis, with Lumumba a dupe for the So-
viets. Herskovits, by contrast, viewed Lumumba as a popular nationalist
leader who sought independence from the Belgians and reunication of
the Congo. Although both Herskovits and the Eisenhower administra-
tion supported United Nations intervention, the administration covertly
acted to overthrow Lumumba, perhaps prolonging the crisis. Unaware
of the cias role in the crisis, Herskovits argued that the uns actions had
helped avoid a Congo war that could have become a Cold War bat-
tleground. Herskovits believed that the Congo crisis lent support to his
view that Africa need not become enmeshed in the larger struggle be-
tween the Soviet Union and the United States. Only a misguided policy
based on unilateral action would culminate in a Cold War conict.
The 1960 election of John F. Kennedy to the presidency appeared to

present Herskovits with the opportunity for a more inuential advisory
role. In the Senate, Kennedy had strongly criticized Eisenhowers obses-
sion with Communism in the Middle East and North Africa. Kennedy
proposed that a more eective policy toward these regions would focus
on nationalism and the inevitable transformation from colonial status to
independent states. Moreover, he recommended increased foreign aid
to Africa through the creation of an African Education Development
Fund.
In December 1960, after Kennedys victory in the presidential election,

Kennedy adviser Robert C. Good asked Herskovits to assist in formulat-
ing policy recommendations for sub-Saharan Africa.
Herskovits made
several recommendations. He advised the new administration to sup-
port United Nations control of South-West Africa, which had been un-
der South African control since the end of the First World War. In
addition, the United States should stay out of intra-African problems
such as territorial disputes. If outside intervention was deemed neces-
sary, it should be multilateral favoring action by African states. Hers-
kovits also urged the negotiation of international agreements to limit
weapon sales to Africa.
Nevertheless, the Kennedy administration au-

thorized covert arms sales to South Africa in 1962 in exchange for Ameri-
can access to land near Pretoria to set up a deep space tracking station.
But in August 1963 Kennedy ordered the termination of all weapons
sales to South Africa after January 1, 1964.

224
In March 1961, in a lecture at Michigan State University, Herskovits
renewed his criticism of past American policy toward Africa, at the same
time applauding a recent speech, entitled Africa for the Africans, by the
new assistant secretary of state for African aairs, G. Mennen Williams.
Herskovits called U.S. policy in Africa during the Eisenhower admin-
istration incredibly nave, noting that at times we have outsmarted
ourselves. By gearing U.S. policy toward placating nato allies in Eu-
rope and treating Africa as a Cold War battleground, Herskovits insisted
that policymakers had fostered policies that were detrimental to Africa
and the United States. Herskovits believed that Williamss speech sig-
naled that the Kennedy administration was moving toward an Africa
policy that focused on Africans and not on Europeans and Soviets. Hers-
kovits underlined the fact that friendship cannot be bought. Africans
were more interested in their own values and the dignity of having
those values recognized by the powers of the world. He discounted the
Soviet threat in Africa, saying there is a good chance the Russians may
outfumble us in Africa. I feel the Russians are baed by the Africans.
In March 1961 Herskovits expressed his pleasure that his 1959 report
on Africa appeared to inuence the Kennedy administrations framework
for analyzing events in Africa. Moreover, Herskovits was hopeful that
U.S. policy toward Africa under Kennedy and the new United Nations
ambassador, Adlai Stevenson, would be a marked improvement over
that of the Eisenhower administration.
Herskovitss optimism notwithstanding, the overarching inuence

of Cold War concerns during the Kennedy administration limited the
chances for the development of an Africa-centered policy. This is demon-
strated by the fate of the proposed nomination of Herskovits to a seat on
the Bureau of African Aairs of the State Department. Herskovitss op-
portunity to have a greater impact on Americas Africa policies during
the Kennedy administration was hamstrung by the Federal Bureau of
Investigations (fbi) failure to give him security clearance for the posi-
tion. In 1961 Special Assistant to the President Kenneth ODonnell re-
quested an fbi background check on Herskovits. The extensive inves-
tigation revealed Herskovitss membership in 17 cited organizations
that were considered Communist front organizations by the House Un-
American Activities Committee and other congressional committees.
The cited organizations included the Progressive Citizens of Illinois; a

1940 committee supporting the pardon of John B. McNamara, who was
225
serving a life sentence for blowing up the Los Angeles Times building
thirty years earlier during a labor dispute; and the National Council of
the Arts, Sciences and Professions.
The fbi continued to periodically

investigate Herskovits. For instance, the fbi reported that on June 6,
1962, an agent contacted Herskovits claiming to be a reporter for the
Chicago Maroon, a student newspaper, in order to nd out Herskovitss
plans for travel abroad. The call was made after a source advised the fbi
that Herskovits planned to travel to Africa and Czechoslovakia.
Al-
though he was unable to obtain a presidential-appointed position due to
the fbi report, Herskovits did serve on the State Departments Advisory
Council on African Aairs, along with about three dozen other scholars,
foundation ocials, and businesspeople.
Nonetheless, Herskovitss
inuence on American policy toward Africa was diminished.
While American policymakers rejected Herskovitss advice, African
nationalists expressed appreciation for his consistent support for African
self-determination. In 1960 Herskovits was an honored guest at the Ni-
gerian independence ceremonies. The same year, Senegals president,
Lopold Sdar Senghor, praised Herskovits to the American ambassador
for his contributions to helping Americans understand Africans. As an
expression of gratitude, the following year Senghor invited Herskovits to
the rst anniversary celebrations of independence in Senegal.
In 1962
Herskovits attended Ugandas independence celebrations, which par-
ticularly pleased him because one of his former students was minister of
education there.
In his last major work, The Human Factor in Changing Africa, pub-
lished in 1962, Herskovits summed up his view of the history, culture,
politics, and economics of sub-Saharan Africa. Herskovits brought to
this work a lifetimes experience in grappling with the issue of cultural
change in Africa. Moreover, since the Second World War the anthropol-
ogist had broadened his interests to embrace the totality of the African
experience. He had traveled extensively in Africa during the postwar
era, visiting the continent in 1953, 1954, 1955, 1957, 1960, and 1961.
These trips combined Herskovitss two major postwar interests, promot-

ing Northwesterns Program of African Studies and continuing his on-
going study of African cultures and cultural change. Herskovitss nal
book represented the sum total of his long-held views on Africa and
cultural change. His thesis was that present-day cultures and societies
in Africa represented the result of a long-term dynamic process of inter-
226
action between indigenous cultures and external inuences. Indeed, his
1960 trip had impressed him with the increasing reassertion of African
culture, a development that diered from the popular view that tradi-
tional beliefs were being abandoned with the increasing inuence of
Western culture.
Herskovits maintained that cultural change in Africa

followed a universal mechanism of cultural change called accultura-
tion. He described this dynamic as follows: [W]henever peoples hav-
ing dierent customs come together, they modify their ways by taking
over something from those with whom they newly meet. They may take
over much or little, according to the nature and intensity of the contact,
or the degree to which the two cultures have elements in common, or
dier in basic orientations. But they never take over or ignore all; some
change is inevitable.
In The Human Factor, Herskovits surveyed African physical types,

culture areas, history, education, religion, the arts, economics, and poli-
tics. The strength of the book is its emphasis on the impact of change on
various institutions and its argument that one cannot expect traditional
African culture to melt away in the face of Western cultural, economic,
and political inuences. Instead, Africans were willing to accept change
when it is demonstrated that this is to their advantage, and when changes
do not involve too radical a departure from established canons of social
organization, beliefs and modes of behavior.
For example, Africans

preferred secular schools to missionary schools, as they were less likely to
have their cultures denigrated there.
Moreover, as a result of the long

history of racial discrimination and its resulting tensions, Africans often
suspected the worst when confronted with Western advice. Therefore
Africans needed to be convinced that European or American projects
would be advantageous to them.
Critics generally applauded Hersko-

vitss thesis on the dynamism of cultural change.
Herskovits argued
that, in various aspects of life, Africans accepted some external inuences
while rejecting others. Africans, like other peoples, reinterpreted tradi-
tional practices when confronted with change to form cultural syncre-
tisms that contained aspects of the new and the old.
In religion, Afri-
cans accepted some aspects of Christianity and Islam but often continued
to hold to their traditional beliefs as well.
Herskovits rejected the view

that when Africans migrated to cities, they went through a process of
detribalization. Instead, Herskovits cited extensive evidence that dem-
227
onstrated that Africans maintained their loyalty to tribal roots when they
became urban dwellers.
Similarly, in his discussion of African nationalist movements and poli-

tics in the independent states, Herskovits described the interaction be-
tween traditional institutions and modern inuences. He attributed the
rise of African nationalist movements to multiple causes, including in-
creased European education, political experience in colonial administra-
tions, pride in precolonial African states, loyalty to traditional African
cultures, and the desire to express those values.
Herskovits also argued

that the development of one-party systems in most states was inuenced
by traditional patterns and by the perceived success of one-party Com-
munist states in pursuing rapid economic development.
In his concluding chapter, Herskovits argued that three main forces

contributed to the African search for values: traditional African culture
(in human relations and creative arts), North American and European
inuences arising from the colonial era (technology, literacy, modern
medicine), and, more recently, inuences from Communist countries
(the one-party state as a way of mobilizing maximum resources), India,
and the Near East.
Traditional values became the integrative element

binding the old and the new.
African responses to change varied. The

Masai of East Africa evidenced cultural rigidity, as their needs were
completely satised by their pastoral lifestyle. Thus they rejected Western
ways. By contrast, the Nigerian Ibos, whose culture emphasized individ-
ual decision-making based on opportunities for success, were very open
to changes that would maximize individual opportunity. Most African
cultures responded to Western inuences somewhere in between the
extreme examples of the Masai and the Ibos. Moreover, Herskovits ar-
gued that since most Africans were born into a world of African and
European inuences, a new unied tradition was already in place.
While Herskovitss nal book eectively made the argument for the
strength of traditional African cultures and the inevitability of change in
which Africans would choose from various cultural choices, the work
was marred by several shortcomings. Herskovits failed to confront many
of Africas problems. By focusing on all of sub-Saharan Africa through
the theme of cultural change, Herskovits omitted analyses of specic
cultures, peoples, colonies, and states. Specic analyses would probably
have led Herskovits to produce greater insights into political and ethnic
conict, the question of one-party states, tensions with present and for-
228
mer colonial powers, and problems of economic development.
In one
case of relying on an outmoded analysis, Herskovits divided Africa into
six cultural areas, based on his 1930 article. The generalizations em-
ployed in this analysis obscured some of the cultural complexity in dif-
ferent geographic regions. Furthermore, by emphasizing the agency of
Africans in making cultural choices, Herskovits underestimated the role
of power in limiting choice. He did allude to this, for instance, noting
that urban migration was in part caused by economic coercion. Individ-
uals were forced to leave subsistence farming to earn money in the cities
to pay taxes imposed by the state. In this connection, it is interesting that
Herskovits devoted a signicant section of the book to the mobilization
of labor for industry. He discussed this issue in the context of traditional
resistance to industrial discipline but did not question the assumption
that industrialization and change from traditional work styles were desir-
able.
Herskovits, who was friendly with a number of African leaders,

may have been inuenced by their support for economic development
programs including new technologies, medical care, large development
projects, modern communications, and transportation as the way to
economic independence.
A few months after the publication of his nal book, Herskovits ew

to Africa for the last time and gave a plenary address at the First Inter-
national Congress of Africanists in Accra, Ghana. He was particularly
pleased that this congress represented an organization that was African
and therefore constituted a validation of the importance of their cul-
tures in the world scene. He was also happy to report that he was able to
win his point that the congress would be controlled by scholars and not
by governments, as the Soviets wanted.
Thus less than two months

before his death, Herskovits was optimistic that the signicance of his
lifes workwhich emphasized the dynamism and strength of African
cultures, the advance of African studies, and the necessity for pursu-
ing scholarly endeavors in an environment conducive to objective re-
searchwas achieving global recognition.
Nevertheless, the political environment in which the tremendous ad-
vances in African studies were made continued to privilege Cold War
calculations above the needs of Africans. The Kennedy administrations
rhetorical support for African nationalist movements and African neu-
trality was not generally matched by its actions. Although Kennedys
policies did represent a change from those of Eisenhower, Cold War
229
strategy remained paramount. American involvement in Africa increased
with higher levels of economic and military aid given to the continent.
But this aid was designed to make sure that pro-Western leaders would
head African governments, regardless of the impact these leaders would
have on their own countries. For example, the Kennedy administration
established a military aid mission in the Congo in 1963 that worked
with the American embassy and the local cia station to help place a
pro-American leader in power. This was achieved in 1965 when Joseph
Mobutu came to power with U.S. assistance following a coup dtat.
Despite the corrupt and brutal nature of Mobutus government, for over
twenty-ve years the United States continued its support based on Cold
War strategy. Similarly, in 1962 the Kennedy administration supported
Portugal, a nato ally, in voting in the United Nations on issues involv-
ing Portugals African colonies. Thus American foreign policy often sup-
ported corrupt dictators and opposed African self-determination.
In the nal analysis, Herskovitss hope for an American policy on

Africa that emphasized African needs was not fullled. Although it is
impossible to know how Africas history would have changed had Amer-
ican policy been dierent, it is no secret that the continents economic
and political development was retarded by Cold War maneuvers. Nu-
merous dictatorships were propped up by American, Soviet, or Chinese
military support. The militarization of African states slowed economic
development and contributed to the expansion of ethnic and regional
wars. nato military aid helped Portugal delay the formation of indepen-
dent states in Angola and Mozambique. In South Africa, Western sup-
port extended white supremacy rule.
Herskovitss warnings about the

dangers of subordinating African needs to Cold War calculations proved
all too accurate.
231
Epilogue
When the big cotton tree falls, the little goat eats its leaves.Haitian Proverb
If my worlds black and yours is white
How the hell could we think alike.
Sister Souljah
M
elville j. herskovits died of a heart attack on February
25, 1963.
Born into a world that devalued Africans and

African Americans and their cultures, Herskovits devoted
his life to the idea that all cultures have worth and to discovering the
dynamism and strength of African and African American societies. He
supported African self-determination in the midst of colonialism. He
worked to establish African American and African studies as legitimate
disciplines in American higher education. His work empowered African
diasporic peoples and served to undermine ideas that supported white
supremacy and European colonialism. He helped usher in a world in
which African peoples would be accorded the dignity they deserved. And
the work goes on. As historian Henry Adams said, A teacher aects
eternity; he can never tell where his inuence stops.
Sociologist St.
Clair Drake remarked in 1988 that Herskovits himself believed that his
studies relevance was expansive, saying, they would enter into rma-
ment.
Drake added, [Y]ou cant control the ferment once it gets

going, you see. But the ferment did come.
Although Drake was re-

ferring to Herskovitss research into black cultures, his statement was
equally true for Herskovitss ideas on cultural relativism and his work in
building the disciplines of African and African American studies. Hers-
kovitss intellectual and institutional contributions in all these areas have
clearly entered into that rmament, with the controversial issues he dis-
cussed omnipresent, his ideas as relevant as ever.
Epilogue
232
In the four decades since Herskovitss death, the issues that engaged
his attention have assumed great prominence in public debate. More-
over, the tension between cultural particularism and universalism that
was present in his work has emerged as a driving force behind debates
about race and culture. The 1960s witnessed the reemergence of the
earlier argument between Frazier and Herskovits on the nature of black
culture and the question of pathology in black culture. Was black culture
unique or a pathological distortion of mainstream American (white)
culture? The reemergence of a strong black nationalist movement in the
latter stages of the civil rights movement reinvigorated popular and
scholarly emphasis on black culture and history. The idea that elements
of African culture had inuenced the life and thought of African Ameri-
cans gained a new respectability with the rise of Black Power rhetoric,
the questioning of the assimilationist ethic, and the new interest in the
distinctive aspects of the culture of the black working class.
Many intel-
lectuals and activists now spoke out in support of Herskovitss inter-
pretation of black culture. Indeed, his conclusion about the African in-
uence on American and African American culture has been redeemed
by the scholarship of the last twenty-ve years. Lawrence Levines Black
Culture and Black Consciousness: Afro-American Folk Thought from Slavery
to Freedom (1977), for instance, served as a brilliant demonstration of
the validity of what Herskovits wrote about the connections between
African and African American culture.
The 1965 publication by the U.S Department of Labor of its report The
Negro Family: The Case for National Action, by Daniel Patrick Moynihan,
engendered a huge public controversy on the nature of black culture.
Moynihans report, based in part on the writings of Frazier and Myrdal,
blamed the pathological matriarchal black family for many of the prob-
lems of blacks.
With the rise of the Black Power movement and black

cultural nationalism in the mid-1960s, the position taken by the Myrdal
and the Moynihan studies and their proponents came under widespread
attack, and the Herskovits position was embraced. Like Herskovits,
critics of the Moynihan study argued that if black family life and culture
deviated from white culture, it meant that it was dierent but organized
in its own way, based in part on the African inuence. It was not a
pathological or distorted version of white culture. The critics emphasized
the positive attributes of black culture and African culture.
Many of
Moynihans critics, including black sociologists Joyce Ladner and An-
Epilogue
233
drew Billingsley, either invoked Herskovitss work, notably The Myth of
the Negro Past, or similar ideas about the strength of black cultural institu-
tions, including nontraditional families.
Billingsley, supporting the

Herskovits view of black culture, has observed that the history and the
heritage of the African-American people does not begin or end with
slavery.
Adverse reaction to the Moynihan report on the black family

inspired many scholars to challenge the idea that black families were
pathological institutions. Notable in this respect was historian Herbert
G. Gutman, whose Black Family in Slavery and Freedom, 17501925 (1976)
demonstrated the fundamental historic health of the black family.
Herskovitss thesis in The Myth of the Negro Past that knowledge of Afri-
can cultures would increase African Americans self-respect also achieved
signicant resonance during the 1960s and 1970s. Black nationalists,
including the Black Panthers, invoked Herskovitss ideas about black
culture.
Jean Herskovits recently recalled that while teaching African

history at City College of New York during the late 1960s, many black
radicals, wearing Afros and dark sunglasses, walked into her classes with
copies of Herskovitss Myth of the Negro Past. They read the book not
because she had assigned it but because it was in part a manifesto for their
black cultural nationalism.
Black nationalists used Herskovitss ideas

about black cultural distinctiveness to reject the notion of integration,
arguing instead that black culture was the basis for black political inde-
pendence.
Herskovitss view that increased pride in black culture and

heritage would lead to increased self-respect was conrmed as [b]lack
experts watched the transformation from self-hate to health.
The Hers-
kovits argument that the dissemination of more accurate knowledge
about African culture and African American culture would increase
whites respect for blacks is mirrored today by prominent intellectuals.
Recently, Henry Louis Gates Jr. remarked on one of the reasons that he
produced a television series on African history and culture. I dont think
you change attitudes overnight, Gates said. I dont think watching The
Cosby Show made David Dukes less racist, but I do think that having
African achievement and the triumphs of African civilization in a cur-
riculumsubliminally, that aects racial attitudes.
New historical and anthropological studies conrmed the African cul-

tural inuence on whites as well as blacks but did not negate the inu-
ence of slavery and oppression during the postCivil War era. In 1969
historian C. Vann Woodward stated that so far as their culture is con-
Epilogue
234
cerned, all Americans are part Negro.
Decades earlier, Herskovits had

made similar arguments, based on his acculturation studies, in The Myth
of the Negro Past and in What Has Africa Given America? In 1992 two
prominent anthropologists, Sidney Mintz and Richard Price, conrmed
the signicance of the African inuence in the Americas based on their
own research and their knowledge of contemporary research on the
subject.
Three years later Shelley Fisher Fishkin reported that during

the previous ve years, over a hundred publications established the inter-
connectedness between black culture and white culture.
While Herskovitss position on the African inuence is widely ac-

cepted, more sophisticated anthropological studies of African and Afri-
can American cultures, while conrming the African cultural inuence in
America, have also modied some of the particulars of Herskovitss argu-
ment. Anthropologists now accept the diversity of West African cultures,
negating Herskovitss argument for a relatively homogeneous culture
area of West Africa. On the other hand, Mintz and Price support Hers-
kovitss search for underlying values, such as interpersonal style, beliefs
about causality, and attitudes about sociocultural change, as important
in attempting to dene an African cultural heritage.
Herskovitss emphasis on survivals has also been criticized. Lawrence

Levine rejected the use of the term survival because it implied that
African cultural elements were merely quaint reminders of an exotic
culture suciently alive to render the slaves picturesquely dierent but
little more. Levine emphasized the changing nature of culture and ar-
gued that African cultural elements played a central part in the creation
and transformation of African American culture.
Of course, despite his

use of the word survival, Herskovits also stressed the dynamic nature of
culture. Indeed, as we have seen, he employed the term reinterpreta-
tion to explain how Trinidadians transformed African and European
cultural elements based on their circumstances and needs in Trinidad.
The renewed interest in black culture and history inspired by the civil
rights movement led to the formation of black studies and African Ameri-
can studies programs at many universities. Herskovits had tried in vain to
establish such a program at Northwestern, with his unsuccessful applica-
tions during the 1940s and 1950s. During the late 1960s numerous uni-
versities created black studies programs and departments in direct re-
sponse to strikes and other student demonstrations, particularly after the
assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.
The Journal of Black Studies

Epilogue
235
began publishing in 1970. Black studies programs have proliferated over
the years. During the early 1980s the National Council for Black Studies
reported that there were 525 black studies programs, and 150 of these
were black studies departments.
In 1994 there were 152 black studies

programs at American colleges and universities that oered bachelors
degrees, 13 that oered masters degrees, and 2 that oered doctoral pro-
grams.
Temple University, which established the nations rst doctoral

program in African-American studies . . . has produced 42 Ph.D.s.
Herskovitss controversial role in seeking to control the direction of

Negro studies during the 1930s and 1940s based on a vision of detached
scholarship has been paralleled by the contemporary debate over the
nature and control of black studies. With the formation of black studies
programs in the 1960s, many black scholars insisted that they, rather than
white scholars, should control the discipline. Moreover, the 1960s pro-
grams, unlike Herskovitss proposed program, often had an express po-
litical purpose. They were designed to liberate black people from co-
lonial attitudes. In 1970 Nathan Hare asserted, Black studies will be
revolutionary or it will be useless if not detrimental.
Vincent Harding,
who sought to create at the Institute of the Black World a center that he
hoped would shape the future of the black studies curricula . . . wrote,
We seek for control of our own story.
Furthermore, black students

often refused to be taught by white teachers in black history classes.
Recently, the question of activist scholarship was debated in the New

York Times by two leading scholars of black studies, Manning Marable,
director of the Institute for Research in African-American Studies at
Columbia University, and Henry Louis Gates Jr.
Marable asserted that

black studies departments ought to utilize history and culture as tools
by which an oppressed people can transform their lives and the entire
society. Scholars have an obligation not just to interpret, but to act.
By
contrast, Gates took a position closer to that of Herskovits. While ac-
knowledging that the ideal of wholly disinterested scholarship . . . will
probably remain an elusive one, Gates insisted that it should still be the
fundamental reason for research. Scholarship should not be required to
have immediate political utility.
Herskovits also left an enduring legacy in African studies. The dis-

cipline has expanded over the years, building on the foundations laid
by Herskovits and other pioneers. Recently, anthropologist Sally Falk
Moore declared Herskovits the prime mover behind African studies in
Epilogue
236
the United States.
Today, African studies ourishes. The African Stud-

ies Association (asa) boasted over 3,000 members during the mid-
1990s, with annual conferences averaging 600 papers and 2,000 scholars
typically in attendance.
And the program that Herskovits began at

Northwestern continues to thrive. Today, Northwesterns Melville J.
Herskovits Library of African Studies boasts the nest Africana library
in North America if not the world, with more than 245,000 volumes,
2,800 current serials, 300 current African newspapers.
Just as in black studies programs, racial politics in African studies has

caused controversy and division. During the late 1960s and 1970s black
scholars criticized African studies programs for their antiblack bias. His-
torian Sterling Stuckey asserted that the number of Afro-Americans in
African Studies programs across the country is criminally small. . . . The
number of Africans and Afro-Americans teaching in African Studies pro-
grams, of course, is smaller still.
Black scholars attacked the asa for

limiting the presence and decision-making roles of black scholars and for
failing to make the discipline responsive to the needs of people of African
descent.
The asa established a committee of black and white scholars

and made recommendations for increasing black participation in the
asa. In 1969 the asas Black Caucus formed the African Heritage Studies
Association (ahsa). At the annual conference that year in Montreal, the
ahsa demanded equal African (meaning African and African American)
and European representation on the asa executive board. Many white
scholars resented the designation of African Americans as Africans.
Following the asas refusal to concede a conspicuous role for ahsa

members on decision-making committees, and . . . [to] award them an
appreciable number of research fellowships, the ahsa members decided
to separate from the asa.
This conict led to almost twenty years of

insularity from major foundations and African studies programs. In
1985 the ahsa was invited to return to the asa.
Debates about the virtues or vices of cultural relativism, cultural plu-

ralism, and cultural pluralisms modern correlate, multiculturalism, are
as controversial today as they were in Herskovitss day. Indeed, the in-
tellectual discourse of the 1990s on multiculturalism, cultural diversity,
African American culture, and American culture recalls many of Hersko-
vitss ideas. The issues that Herskovits engaged about the nature of Afri-
can and African American cultures and the virtues of cultural relativism
resemble the raging debates over identity politics and multiculturalism.
Epilogue
237
Just as Herskovitss work straddled notions of particularismemphasiz-
ing the strength of African cultures and African American culturesand
universalismemphasizing the fundamental humanity of all cultures
so today do contemporary commentators struggle with these same
issues. Multiculturalism, dened by sociologist Todd Gitlin as the de-
mand for the respect for dierences, corresponds with Herskovitss de-
nition of cultural relativism, that is, respect for mutual dierences.
Just
as Herskovitss embrace of cultural relativism enraged critics during the
1940s, so, too, do supporters of multiculturalism inspire opposition to-
day. For instance, Gitlin recently lamented the overemphasis on multi-
culturalism and identity politics, which he dened as the recognition of
a collective hurt, followed by the mistaking of a group position for a
culture, followed by the mistaking of a culture for a politics.
Gitlin
argued that identity politics caused a fragmentation of the political left
into various cultural groups concerned with their own group based on
ethnicity, race, gender, or sexual orientation. He concluded, What is a
Left without a commons, even a hypothetical one? If there is no people,
but only peoples, there is no Left.
Like Gitlin, conservative commentator Dinesh DSouza has attacked

multiculturalism. But unlike Gitlin, who hopes to unify liberals who
are divided by cultural politics, DSouza blames liberal relativists for
societys problems. In a recent best-seller, DSouza called cultural relativ-
ism a disaster for blacks in America today. He argued that this concept
prevents liberals from dealing with the nations contemporary crisis.
DSouza claimed that the main problem for blacks was their civiliza-
tional breakdown that . . . is especially concentrated among the black
underclass.
According to DSouza, relativism prevents any attack on

the pathologies of poor blacks. Indeed, DSouza identied Herskovits as
one of the demon liberals who had articulated this relativist perspective
that had done so much damage. DSouzas argument looks back to the
Victorian eras belief in racial and cultural hierarchy.
If he were alive
today, Herskovits would probably be pained by the fact that DSouzas
work enjoyed such popularity.
In response to DSouza, Herskovits would argue that there cannot be
a valid oneness without a recognition of, and a respect for, dierence.
The interplay between unity and diversity is an ongoing process. There
are periods in which social transformations lead to unied notions of
society, and then there are periods of dierentiation. Herskovitss life-
Epilogue
238
work emphasized both tendencies; he never fully reconciled the two. In
his work on physical anthropology and cultural anthropology, he sought
to undermine notions of racial and cultural hierarchy. By doing so, he
embraced the universal notion that all cultures were entitled to respect
and that none were inherently better than others. Herskovitss studies of
African and African American cultures emphasized the dynamism and
strength of these cultures. In an era that devalued black cultures, he
sought to correct the tendency to place white cultures above all others.
In this work, he emphasized cultural dierences. Furthermore, his phi-
losophy of cultural relativism emphasized the dierences among cul-
tures. Values were culture-bound, and therefore universal rights were
untenable. At the same time, he stressed tolerance of cultural dierences
as a universal value.
The tension in Herskovitss work between universal values and cul-
tural particularism has also resounded in international politics. With
the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights (udhr)
under attack from developing nations on the charge of ethnocentrism,
Secretary-General Ko Annan recently defended the udhr in words that
might easily have been uttered by Herskovits. Speaking on the occasion
of the ftieth anniversary of the adoption of the udhr, Annan asserted
that tolerance was a global value. He insisted, Tolerance promoted,
protected and enshrined will ensure all freedoms. Without it we can be
certain of none. . . . Human rights are the expression of those traditions
of tolerance in all cultures that are the basis of peace and progress.
Annan added, as Herskovits might have said, There is no single model
of democracy or of human rights or of cultural expression for all the
world. Trying to marry universal values with particularism, Annan con-
tinued, But for all the world, there must be democracy, human rights,
and free cultural expression. Thus the secretary-general concluded, The
Universal Declaration of Human Rights, far from insisting on unifor-
mity, is the basic condition for global diversity. . . . We celebrate a victory
for tolerance, diversity and pluralism. The Universal Declaration of Hu-
man Rights is a global bulwark against all systems and all ideologies that
would suppress our distinctness and our humanity. Diversity no less than
dignity is essential to the human condition.
In his nal state of the union address, President William J. Clinton re-
called a meeting with a prominent geneticist who told him that all hu-
Epilogue
239
mans have a genetic code that is 99.9 percent the same. Modern science
has conrmed what ancient faiths have always taught: the most impor-
tant fact of life is our common humanity. Therefore, we should do more
than just tolerate our diversity. We should honor it and celebrate it,
asserted the president.
Herskovits could not have said it better.

241
Notes
Introduction
1. West, New Cultural Politics, 93.
2. For example, Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., longtime liberal historian and former
adviser to President John F. Kennedy, wrote The Disuniting of America.
3. Gitlin, Twilight of Common Dreams, 148.
4. See DSouza, Illiberal Education. For an insightful critique of DSouzas selec-
tive use of evidence, see Gitlin, Twilight of Common Dreams, 17275.
6. Stavenhagen, Cultural Rights.
7. Herskovits, Man and His Works, 653.
8. Mintz, introduction to Myth of the Negro Past, ix.
9. Ford, Black Studies, 52; Meier and Rudwick, Black History, 78. In history, the
leader of this movement was Carter G. Woodson, founder of the Association
for the Study of Negro Life and History and publisher of the Journal of Negro
History. W. E. B. Du Bois made signal contributions in both sociology and
history. Black colleges led the eort to teach black studies courses, with the
rst black history courses appearing in the 1910s.
10. Mintz, In Memoriam, 50.
11. The dissenters included E. Franklin Frazier, Alain Locke, Guy Johnson, and
Gunnar Myrdal.
12. The British Broadcasting Corporation, London, England, America To-Day:
The Negro (from a recording), June 22, 1937, Report: The Negro in the
United States, by Melville J. Herskovits, Box 4, Melville J. Herskovits Pa-
pers, University Archives, Northwestern University Library, Evanston il
(hereafter cited as mjh-nu).
13. Simpson, Melville J. Herskovits.
14. Baron, Africa in the Americas.
15. Jackson, Melville Herskovits.
16. Janken, Rayford W. Logan, 13442; Harris, Segregation and Scholarship.
17. Cole, Conversations, 22.
Notes to Pages 1115
242
1. The Making of an Anthropologist
1. Coben, Rebellion against Victorianism, 135.
2. Singal, War Within, 58.
3. Herskovits, When Is a Jew a Jew? 11415; Jean Herskovits, interview by
the author, April 2, 1999, notes in the authors possession.
4. Diary of Mrs. Henrietta (Hart) Herskovits, 19021906, Box 1, Melville J.
Herskovits Papers, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, New
York Public Library, New York (hereafter cited as mjh-sc); Security Inves-
tigation Data Form, Sensitive Position, 19591960, Atomic Energy Com-
mission Form, n.d., Box 2, mjh-sc.
5. Sorin, A Time for Building, 10.
6. Diary of Mrs. Henrietta (Hart) Herskovits.
7. Undated News Clippings, Box 1, mjh-sc.
8. Undated News Clippings, Box 1, mjh-sc.
9. Diary of Mrs. Henrietta (Hart) Herskovits.
10. Herskovits, interview.
11. Herskovits, When Is a Jew a Jew? 11415.
14. Brodkin, How Jews Became White Folks, 2532.
17. Thirty-Two Pass Try-Out Exams, Les Beaux Jours, Poitiers, France, March
29, 1919, Box 1, mjh-sc.
18. Herskovits, interview; Ocial Transcript of the Record of Melville Jean
Herskovits, University of Cincinnati, mjh-sc.
19. Melville J. Herskovits Transcript, University of Chicago, June 15, 1920, mjh-
sc.
20. Melville Herskovits to Herman Herskovits (father), February 7, 1920, Box 1,
mjh-sc.
21. Herskovits, Letter to Rabbi [Horace J.] Wolf, American Jewish Review,
March 27, 1920, Box 36, mjh-sc.
22. Bender, New York Intellect, 289; Dinnerstein, Antisemitism in America, 8486.
23. Herskovits, Letter to the Editor, (University of Chicago) Daily Maroon,
May 27, 1920, Box 36, mjh-sc.
24. Douglas, Terrible Honesty, 910, 1516.
25. Dumenil, Modern Temper, 8, 153, 155, 164; Douglas, Terrible Honesty, 16.
26. Leuchtenberg, Perils of Prosperity, 14144.
27. Cressman, A Golden Journey, 96100. Cressman, Margaret Meads rst hus-
band, was a friend of Herskovitss at Columbia.
28. Rutko and Scott, New School, xii, 2, 22, 26.
Notes to Pages 1521
243
29. Herskovits, Letter to the Editor, Freeman, December 1, 1920; Herskovits,
Letter to Rabbi Wolf ; Herskovits to Charlotte Herskovits (sister), No-
vember 10, 1919, Box 1; all in mjh-sc; Rice, Margaret Mead, 4243.
30. Herskovits, Mediocrite Jusqua La Fin! (letter to editor), Freeman, Decem-
ber 8, 1920, Box 36, mjh-sc.
31. Leuchtenberg, Perils of Prosperity, 15153; Security Investigation Data
Form. On the iww, see Dubofsky, We Shall Be All.
32. Boas, Changes in Bodily Form; Carey, Ruth Benedict, 13032.
33. Dubofsky, Industrialism and the American Worker, 138.
34. Herskovits, An Inquiry, 124.
35. Dubofsky, We Shall Be All, 455.
36. Simpson, Melville J. Herskovits, 23; Jackson, Melville Herskovits, 99100;
Security Investigation Data Form.
37. Simpson, Melville J. Herskovits, 3.
38. Simpson, Melville J. Herskovits, 2; Jackson, Melville Herskovits, 99; Hersko-
vits, Signicance of Thorstein Veblen.
39. Herskovits, Franz Boas, 22.
40. Lowie was a prominent anthropologist, Ogburn, a prominent sociologist.
Simpson, Melville J. Herskovits, 23.
41. Darnell, Invisible Genealogies, 35.
42. Darnell, And Along Came Boas, 274.
43. Boas, Mind of Primitive Man, 20.
44. Cole, Franz Boas, 27374; Boas, Mind of Primitive Man, 17379; Stocking,
Race, Culture, and Evolution, 230.
45. Hofstadter, Social Darwinism, 170200; Gossett, Race, 14455; Willis, Skel-
etons, 12124; Hobsbawm, Age of Empire, 25254, 27071.
46. Gossett, Race, 6970.
47. Gould, Mismeasure of Man, 325; Gossett, Race, 76.
48. Gould, Mismeasure of Man, 99; Barkan, Retreat of Scientic Racism, 16.
50. Broca quoted in Gould, Mismeasure of Man, 83.
51. Broca quoted in Gould, Mismeasure of Man, 8384.
52. Gould, Mismeasure of Man, 8896.
54. Willis quoted in Patterson, Social History of Anthropology, 45.
55. Hyatt, Franz Boas, x, 4244, 85.
56. Cole, Franz Boas, 5760, 84.
57. Diner, In the Almost Promised Land, xvxvi.
58. Lewis, Parallels and Divergences, 2325.
59. Hyatt, Franz Boas, 85; Diner, In the Almost Promised Land, 14249.
60. Frank, Jews, 740. Mandelbaum did his undergraduate work at Northwest-
ern University from 1928 to 1932. He later received his Ph.D. in anthropol-
Notes to Pages 2127
244
ogy from Yale University. Herskovitss lectures inuenced his decision to
study anthropology. Hockings, forward to Dimensions of Social Life, v.
61. Mead to mjh, May 19, 1925, Box 13, mjh-nu.
62. Herskovits, When Is a Jew a Jew? 115; Diner, In the Almost Promised Land,
100101.
63. Higham, Strangers in the Land, 194233, 27072, 32324; Gossett, Race,
35354.
64. Coben, Rebellion against Victorianism, 5758; Herskovits, Franz Boas, 3942;
Boas, Changes in the Bodily Form. In 1937 two researchers reanalyzed
Boass ndings from his head-form studies and concluded that dierences
from parents to children were due to observer discrepancies. Allen, Franz
Boass Physical Anthropology, 83. Nonetheless, the totality of Boass work
and that of others, including Herskovits, undercut the view of the racial
determinists.
65. Ruth E. Mugnaini, Los Angeles State College, to mjh, March 13, 1961, mjh
to Mugnaini, April 24, 1961, Box 93, mjh-nu.
66. Moore, Anthropology and Africa, 11.
67. Baker, From Savage to Negro, 12125.
68. Ruth E. Mugnaini, Los Angeles State College, to mjh, March 13, 1961, mjh
69. Herskovits, Cattle Complex, 63364; American Africanologist, West Af-
rica (October 27, 1962): 1181, Box 73, mjh-sc. Many anthropology disserta-
tions from this period were based on secondary sources, with no eldwork.
Murphy, Introduction, 4.
70. Barkan, Retreat of Scientic Racism, 10811; Freed and Freed, Clark Wissler,
804, 81014.
71. Herskovits, Cattle Complex, 249.
73. Herskovits, Cattle Complex, 36162, 373.
76. Herskovits, Cattle Complex, 64041, 64647.
77. Herskovits, Preliminary Consideration of the Culture Areas of Africa, 50
63; Herskovits, Culture Areas of Africa, 5977.
78. Stocking, Race, Culture, and Evolution, 22829; Cole, Franz Boas, 13132.
2. The Attack on Pseudoscientic Racism
1. Leuchtenburg, Perils of Prosperity, 2059; Coben, Rebellion against Victorian-
ism, 13637.
Notes to Pages 2731
245
2. Stocking, Scientic Reaction, 297; see also 289.
3. Stocking, Scientic Reaction, 270307.
4. Barkan, Retreat of Scientic Racism, 6671, 11112. On the origins of the nrc,
see Lagemann, Politics of Knowledge, 4150.
5. Barkan, Retreat of Scientic Racism, 11213.
7. Stocking, Ideas and Institutions, 12.
8. Stocking, Race, Culture, and Evolution, 300.
9. Simpson, Melville J. Herskovits, 6771; Herskovits, American Negro; Stock-
ing, Race, Culture, and Evolution, 300; Howard, Margaret Mead, 6870;
Mintz, introduction to Myth of the Negro Past, xii; Boas to the Fellowship
Committee of the nrc, December 9, 1926 (supporting Klineberg applica-
tion), Reel 27, Franz Boas Papers, Microlm Edition, Duke University, Dur-
ham nc (hereafter cited as Boas Papers).
10. Stocking, Race, Culture, and Evolution, 300.
11. mjh, nrc Fellowship Application, ca. April 10, 1923, Box 14, mjh-nu; Hers-
kovits, American Negro, 2228, 4550.
12. Loring (Pruette Fryer) to mjh, November 5, 1923?, Box 8, mjh-nu.
14. mjh, nrc Fellowship Application, ca. April 10, 1923, Box 14, mjh-nu; Hers-
kovits, American Negro, 2228, 4550.
17. Chase, Legacy of Malthus, 17475.
18. F. R. L. [Frank R. Lillie], Plans for European Study of M. J. Herskovits,
n.d., International Education Board Papers, Series 1.3, Box 51, Folder 783,
Rockefeller Archive Center, North Tarrytown ny (hereafter cited as ieb
Papers).
19. F. R. L., Plans for European Study of M. J. Herskovits.
20. F. R. L., Plans for European Study of M. J. Herskovits. While in Europe,
Herskovits attended and addressed the International Anthropological Con-
gress in the Hague, Netherlands, on the American negro. Erie Graduate
Attends Foreign Conference, no newspaper name, n.d. [ca. 1925], Box 18,
mjh-nu.
22. F. R. Lillie, Chairman, Board of National Research Fellowships in the Bio-
logical Sciences, nrc, to mjh, April 28, 1923, Box 14, mjh-nu; Barkan,
Retreat of Scientic Racism, 68, 11213.
24. Tozzer to Boas, May 4, 1924, Reel 25, Boas Papers.
Notes to Pages 3134
246
26. Lillie, nrc, to mjh, May 1, 1925, Edith Elliot, nrc, to mjh, June 3, 1925,
Box 14, mjh-nu.
27. Sadie M. Peterson to Boas, October 9, 1923, Peterson to Boas, n.d., circa
December 1923, Reel 24, Boas Papers; Herskovits, Anthropometry of the Ne-
gro, xiv, 80.
28. mjh Diaries, 19221924, Box 4, mjh-sc. Some of the prominent people
Herskovits met agreed to be subjects of the study and underwent all the
measurements. One example was J. Rosamond Johnson, composer, concert
pianist, and playwright, as well as the brother of naacp ocial James Weldon
Johnson. Form f1 for J. Rosamond Johnson, July 9, 1926, Box 149, mjh-nu.
29. Herskovits and Boas sought the help of Carter G. Woodson, founder and
president of the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History
(asnlh), in identifying and funding Negro students to help in the measure-
ment project. Woodson to mjh, June 16, 1923, Woodson to mjh, July 3,
1923, Woodson to mjh, August 10, 1923, Woodson to mjh, September 14,
1923, Woodson to mjh, September 29, 1923, Box 11, mjh-nu; Woodson to
Boas, May 15, 1924, Reel 25, Boas Papers.
30. mjh to Roger Baldwin, July 10, 1925, Box 3, mjh-nu.
31. Locke to mjh, April 14, 1924, Box 13, mjh-nu; mjh to Boas, March 3, 1925,
Reel 25, Boas Papers; Boas to Woodson, November 18, 1926, Woodson to
Boas, November 19, 1926, Woodson to Boas, November 23, 1926, Reel 27,
Boas Papers. All four assistants were cited in the preface to Herskovitss The
American Negro.
32. Hemenway, Zora Neale Hurston, 63.
33. mjh to Durkee, January 5, 1925, Box 7, mjh-nu.
34. mjh to Locke, February 1, 1924, mjh to Locke, March 10, 1924, Box 164,
Alain Locke Papers, Moorland-Spingarn Research Center, Howard Univer-
sity, Washington dc (hereafter cited as Locke Papers). Charles S. Johnson,
editor of Opportunity, apparently introduced Locke to Herskovits in January
1924. Johnson to mjh, January 8, 1924, Box 17, mjh-nu.
35. mjh to Todd, January 6, 1924, Box 24, mjh-nu.
36. mjh to Durkee, January 5, 1925, Durkee to mjh, January 9, 1925, mjh to
Durkee, January 13, 1925, Box 7, mjh-nu.
37. Stocking, Race, Culture, and Evolution, 27475; mjh to Locke, January 5,
1925, Locke to mjh, ca. January 16, 1925, mjh to Locke, January 12, 1925,
Box 13, mjh-nu. Moens, Towards Perfect Man.
38. mjh to Durkee, January 5, 1925, Durkee to mjh, January 9, 1925, mjh to
Durkee, January 13, 1925, Box 7, mjh-nu.
39. mjh to Robert Redeld, June 11, 1924, Box 20, mjh-nu.
40. Herskovits, Anthropometry of the Negro, xiv; mjh to Board of Fellowships,
nrc, February 13, 1926, Box 14, mjh-nu.
Notes to Pages 3438
247
41. mjh to Locke, January 5, 1925, mjh to Locke, January 12, 1925, Locke to
mjh, ca. January 16, 1925, Box 13, mjh-nu.
42. mjh to Miss Elliot, nrc, January 13, 1925, Edith Elliot, nrc, to mjh, January
21, 1925, Box 14, mjh-nu; mjh to Wissler, Committee on Problems in Hu-
man Migration, nrc, February 11, 1925, Box 26, mjh-nu.
43. Distinctive Race of Negroes Seen, (Washington dc) Evening Star, March
19, 1925; Zack, Race and Mixed Race, 122.
44. mjh to Ruth Bunzel, March 29, 1925, Box 5, mjh-nu.
45. mjh to Boas, March 3, 1925, Reel 25, Boas Papers.
46. Williamson, New People, 11213.
47. Herskovits, Anthropometry of the Negro, 139.
48. Herskovits, American Negro, 78.
49. Herskovits, Acculturation and the American Negro, 212.
51. Herskovits based his statistical analysis on an article Boas wrote in 1919 for
the American Anthropologist. mjh to Redeld, June 11, 1924, Box 20, mjh-nu.
52. For more on Todd, see two obituaries: Dr. T. Wingate Todd of Cleveland
Dies, New York Times, December 29, 1938, and Wilton Marion Krogman,
Obituary: Thomas Wingate Todd, January 15, 1885December 28, 1938,
Science 89: 14344, February 17, 1939, Box 24, mjh-nu. Herskovits consid-
ered Todd the only one besides himself who was doing competent biometric
work on the American Negro. mjh to Alfred Stern, Director, the Julius
Rosenwald Fund, March 7, 1928, Box 20, mjh-nu.
54. Todd to mjh, July 23, 1923, Todd to mjh, August 13, 1923, Todd to mjh,
September 5, 1923, Box 24, mjh-nu.
55. Peterson, review of American Negro.
58. Todd to mjh, July 23, 1923, Todd to mjh, August 13, 1923, Todd to mjh,
September 5, 1923, Box 24, mjh-nu.
59. Todd to mjh, February 14, 1924, Box 24, mjh-nu.
60. Form f1, Marcus Story, December 8, 1925, Box 149, mjh-nu.
61. mjh to Todd, February 15, 1926, Box 24, mjh-nu.
62. Herskovits, American Negro.
64. mjh to Todd, May 8, 1924, Box 24, mjh-nu.
65. mjh to Todd, December 10, 1925, Box 24, mjh-nu.
67. mjh to Boas, March 3, 1925, Reel 25, Boas Papers. Herskovits later reported
that about 10 percent of the subjects maintained that they had at least one
white grandparent. Herskovits, Color Line, 207.
Notes to Pages 3842
248
68. Herskovits, American Negro, 52. In A Study of Some Negro-White Families
in the United States (1932), Caroline Bond Day found similarly that mulat-
toes avoided interracial marriages due to an articially exaggerated animus
against interracial unions. Day quoted in Williamson, New People, 116.
69. Herskovits, Anthropometry of the Negro, 27880; Herskovits, American Negro,
8082; Barkan, Retreat of Scientic Racism, 117; Chase, Legacy of Malthus,
18993.
71. mjh to Todd, June 29, 1924, Box 24, mjh-nu; Columbia University Pro-
fessor Studying Racial Admixture, Amsterdam (ny) News, July 14, 1926,
Box 18, mjh-nu.
73. mjh to Todd, May 8, 1924, Box 24, mjh-nu.
74. mjh to the Board of Fellowships in the Biological Sciences, nrc, February
28, 1925, Box 14, mjh-nu.
75. mjh to Sterling Spero, January 4, 1927, Box 22, mjh-nu.
77. Boas to mjh, January 31, 1928, Box 3, mjh-nu.
78. Boas to mjh, November 12, 1928, Boas to mjh, November 16, 1928, Box 3,
mjh-nu.
79. mjh to Boas, November 20, 1928, Boas to mjh, December 6, 1928, Box 3,
mjh-nu; Herskovits, Anthropometry of the Negro, 280.
80. mjh to Boas, December 2, 1929, Box 3; mjh to Fay-Cooper Cole, chairman,
Division of Anthropology and Psychology, nrc, December 5, 1929, Box 14,
mjh-nu; mjh to Boas, March 24, 1930, Box 3, mjh-nu; Cole, nrc, to mjh,
December 19, 1929, mjh to Vernon Kellogg, nrc, May 26, 1930, mjh to
Kellogg, nrc, October 22, 1930, Box 14, mjh-nu.
81. mjh to Kellogg, nrc, December 26, 1930, Box 14, mjh-nu.
82. Herskovits, Cameron, and Smith, Physical Form of Mississippi Negroes.
83. Gunnar Myrdal, in his report on the Negro for the Carnegie Corporation, An
American Dilemma, criticized Herskovitss conclusions on this basis. Myrdal,
American Dilemma, n.59, 1211.
84. Meier to Loren Eiseley, May 4, 1947, mjh to Meier, June 5, 1947, Box 39,
mjh-nu.
85. Meier to mjh, March 30, 1948, Meier to mjh, May 10, 1948, August Meier,
A Study of the Racial Ancestry of the Mississippi College Negro, typescript,
mjh to Meier, June 9, 1948, Box 39, mjh-nu.
86. When the book was reissued in the 1960s, one reviewer emphasized that the
long-term signicance of the book was the underlining cultural and social
questions that Herskovits attempts to answer and not the anthropometry
that was out of date. Williams, review of American Negro.
87. mjh to Boas, March 3, 1925, Reel 25, Boas Papers.
Notes to Pages 4246
249
88. Herskovits, Correlation, 8797.
89. Davenport, review of American Negro. Barkan characterized Davenport as
the most prominent racist among American scientists. Barkan, Retreat of
Scientic Racism, 69.
90. Bean, review of American Negro.
91. Columbia University Professor Studying Racial Admixture; mjh to Boas,
May 15, 1925, Reel 26, Boas Papers; mjh to Todd, July 11, 1925, Box 24,
mjh-nu.
92. Bean, review of American Negro.
94. T. Wingate Todd, review of American Negro, Nation, ca. April 5, 1928, Box 18,
mjh-nu.
95. Wolf, review of American Negro.
96. Du Bois to mjh, May 16, 1928, Box 7, mjh-nu. Du Bois had also written on
the subject of mulattoes and suggested that Herskovits look at his 1906
Atlanta University Study entitled Health and Physique of the Negro Ameri-
can. Du Bois noted that his estimate of mulattoes there is very conservative,
but I had to make it in that way as I was running against the overwhelming
scientic opinion of the day. Du Bois to mjh, May 28, 1928, Box 7, mjh-nu.
97. Du Bois, review of American Negro, Crisis (June 28, 1928), Box 71, mjh-sc.
98. Woodson, review of American Negro.
99. Todd to mjh, April 9, 1924, mjh to Todd, April 18, 1924, Box 24, mjh-nu.
100. Herskovits, Some Observations; mjh to the Board of Fellowships in the
Biological Sciences, nrc, February 28, 1925, Box 14, mjh-nu.
101. Columbia University Professor Studying Racial Admixture.
102. Herskovits, Growth of Interpupillary Distance; Herskovits, Correlation.
103. mjh to Locke, April 25, 1928, Box 13, mjh-nu.
104. mjh to Woodson, April 25, 1928, Box 71, mjh-sc.
105. Frazier, review of American Negro. Reviews by Charles S. Johnson and others
in Box 71, mjh-sc.
106. Frazier, review of American Negro.
107. Williamson, New People, 12129. Earlier works on race mixing and mulattoes
in the United States included Weatherby, Race and Marriage; Reuter, The
Mulatto in the United States. Reuter was a student of Robert Parks at the
University of Chicago. Woodson, Beginnings. Works that came out after
Herskovitss work included Day, Study of Some Negro-White Families; Frazier,
Children in Black and Mulatto Families; Linton, Vanishing American
Negro.
110. Embree, Brown America, 3, 910.
Notes to Pages 4651
250
111. mjh to Dorothy Scarborough, Columbia University, November 19, 1931,
Box 23, mjh-nu.
112. mjh to Woofter, January 12, 1933, Box 26, mjh-nu.
113. Stocking, Race, Culture, and Evolution, 123, 216; Harris, Rise of Anthropologi-
cal Theory, 13839.
114. Herskovits, Test of the Downey Will-Temperament Test; Herskovits,
What Is a Race?; Herskovits, Brains and the Immigrant; Herskovits,
On the Relation between Negro-White Mixture; Herskovits, Negro and the
Intelligence Tests.
115. Campbell, introduction to Cultural Relativism, vii.
116. Downey, Will-Temperament, 6061; Uhrbrock, Analysis of the Downey Will-
Temperament Tests.
117. Herskovits, Test of the Downey Will-Temperament Test.
118. Campbell, introduction to Cultural Relativism, vii.
119. Kevles, In the Name of Eugenics, 8084.
121. Howard, Margaret Mead, 64.
122. Kevles, In the Name of Eugenics, 13538, 336.
123. Herskovits, What Is a Race?
124. Herskovits, Brains and the Immigrant.
125. mjh to Boas, May 15, 1925, Reel 26, Boas Papers; mjh to Todd, July 11, 1925,
Box 24, mjh-nu.
126. Herskovits, On the Relation Between Negro-White Mixture, 3042, Hers-
kovits quote from 41.
127. Klineberg, Study of Psychological Dierences; Klineberg, Negro
Intelligence.
128. Herskovits, The Negro and the Intelligence Tests, ca. February 15, 1927,
mjh-nu; Herskovits, The Negro and the Intelligence Tests.
130. Malcolm Willey to mjh, December 8, 1928, mjh to Willey, December 10,
1928, Box 26, mjh-nu.
131. Evidence of Herskovitss stature in the eld includes his publication of a
number of related articles during the 1930s for the Encyclopaedia of the Social
Sciences. For example, see Herskovits, Anthropometry; Herskovits, Race
Mixture.
132. mjh to George R. Arthur, Associate for Negro Welfare, Julius Rosenwald
Fund, May 29, 1929, Box 3, mjh-nu.
133. Bohannon, Social Anthropology, 19294.
134. Herskovits, Race Mixture, 41.
137. Helen Gruenberg to mjh, June 6, 1940, Box 8, mjh-nu.
Notes to Pages 5156
251
138. mjh to Helen Gruenberg, June 8, 1940, Box 8, mjh-nu.
139. mjh to Gertrude M. Anderson, February 13, 1946, Box 3, mjh-nu.
140. mjh to Monod, March 7, 1946, Box 33, mjh-nu.
141. Melville J. Herskovits, The Myths of Prejudice, Proceedings of the Chi-
cago Conference on Home Front Unity, May, June, 1945, Published by the
Mayors Committee on Race Relations, Chicago, Box 33, mjh-nu.
142. Challenge Negro Education Study, Chicago News, September 24, 1956,
Melville J. Herskovits File, College of Arts and Sciences Faculty Reprints,
Biographical Files, nu Archives.
143. Todd to mjh, December 3, 1929, Box 24, mjh-nu.
144. mjh to Wingate Todd, December 9, 1929, Box 24, mjh-nu.
145. mjh to Wingate Todd, March 17, 1936, Box 24, mjh-nu; Barkan, Retreat of
Scientic Racism, 1048; Hooton, Crime and the Man.
146. Spier to mjh, November 28, 1943, Box 30, mjh-nu. In the same letter Spier
also noted that it was odd that Boas left so few direct descendants in this
particular eldphysical anthropology. [T]o my mind you are the one
man who most closely follows on with the directives he gave. Herskovits
told Spier that the only physical anthropologists who had approved of his
Boas article were Wilton M. Krogman, Ashley Montagu, and, surprisingly,
Hooton. mjh to Spier, December 1, 1943, Box 30, mjh-nu; Herskovits,
Franz Boas.
147. mjh to Goldstein, March 31, 1948, Box 38, mjh-nu.
149. Williams, Rethinking Race, 4, 67, 35.
151. Herskovits, Who Are the Jews? 115863.
152. Herskovits, Who Are the Jews? 1152.
159. Bohannon, Social Anthropology. Bohannon, like Herskovits, taught at North-
western and was a specialist on Africa.
160. Bohannon, Social Anthropology, 18588. Bohannon noted that although Ear-
nest A. Hootons 1931 denition of race, a great division of mankind, the
members of which, though individually varying, are characterized as a group
by a certain combination of morphological and metrical features, principally
non-adaptive, which have been derived from their common descent, was
commonsensical, it still did not make race a useful category for scientic
research.
Notes to Pages 5663
252
161. Bohannon, Social Anthropology, 19294. In recent decades geneticists have
further demonstrated the absurdity of race as a biological concept: 85 per-
cent of all genetic variation is between individuals within the same local
population. A further 8 percent of all genetic variation is between local popu-
lation or groups within what is considered to be a major race. Just 7 percent
of genetic variation is between major races. Malik, Meaning of Race, 4. See
also Marks, Human Biodiversity.
162. Bohannon, Social Anthropology, 19495.
3. Transforming the Debate on Black Culture
1. Arthur J. Todd, chairman, sociology department, Northwestern University,
to mjh, May 16, 1927, Box 24, mjh-nu. Todd initially contacted Herskovits
for the position based on Franz Boass recommendation. With no anthropol-
ogy department at Northwestern in 1927, Herskovits initially taught in the
sociology department.
2. Gleason, American Identity, 33.
3. Giroux, Resisting Dierence, 206.
4. Higham, Strangers in the Land, 15867.
5. Logan, Betrayal of the Negro; Williamson, Crucible of Race; Daniels, Coming to
America, 24546. The Naturalization Act of 1870 excluded Chinese immi-
grants from American citizenship, and the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882
excluded Chinese immigration. Chinese aliens were excluded from American
citizenship until 1943, while other Asian immigrants were also excluded from
citizenship, in some cases until 1952. Daniels, Coming to America, 24546.
6. Giroux, Resisting Dierence, 207; Thuesen, Taking the Vows, 297.
8. Gleason, American Identity, 3941.
9. Leuchtenburg, Perils of Prosperity, 2059; Coben, Rebellion Against Victorian-
ism, 13637. The Midwest, including Herskovitss home state of Ohio, was a
center of Klan activity.
10. McKee, Sociology, 123.
12. Matthews, Quest for an American Sociology, 16062. For Parks years at Tuske-
gee, see Raushenbush, Robert E. Park, 4363.
13. Park, Conict and Fusion, 116.
14. Park, Conict and Fusion, 11233.
15. Herskovits, The Negros Americanism. David L. Lewis called Herskovits
an Honorary New Negro as he was one of only four nonblack contributors
to the special March 1925 issue of the Survey Graphic called Harlem: Mecca
of the New Negro. Lewis, When Harlem Was In Vogue, 11516.
16. Lewis, When Harlem Was In Vogue, 9295.
Notes to Pages 6367
253
17. Locke to mjh, May 26, 1924, Box 13, mjh-nu.
18. Locke to mjh, April 24, 1924, Locke to mjh, May 26, 1924, Locke to mjh, ca.
June 1924, Box 13, mjh-nu.
19. Herskovits, Dilemma of Social Pattern; Herskovits, The Negros Ameri-
canism, 353. James Weldon Johnson expressed a similar opinion in his article
in The New Negro, Harlem Talks American, Reads American, Thinks Ameri-
can. Quoted in Lewis, When Harlem Was In Vogue, 113.
20. Jackson, Melville J. Herskovits, 1056.
21. Locke, foreword to New Negro, xi.
22. Locke, Negro Spirituals, 199.
23. Fauset, American Negro Folk Literature.
24. Barnes, Negro Art and America, 1920.
25. Rogers, Jazz at Home, 21621.
26. Schomburg, The Negro Digs Up His Past.
27. Joseph Ralph to mjh, January 12, 1925, mjh to Joseph Ralph, January 18,
1925, Box 20, mjh-nu.
28. mjh to John Palmer, The Arts Club, Chicago, December 1, 1933, mjh-nu;
Herskovits, Acculturation and the American Negro.
30. Gould and Kolb, Dictionary of the Social Sciences, s.v. Acculturation, by Kees-
ing, 6.
31. During the early twentieth century, acculturation, assimilation, diu-
sion, culture contact, and cultural borrowing were used interchangeably
without distinctly dierent meanings. Gould and Kolb, Dictionary of the Social
Sciences, s.v. Acculturation, by Keesing, 6. In 1931 anthropologist A. L.
Kroeber had dened diusion as a process . . . by which elements or
systems of culture are spread, by which an invention or a new institution
adopted in one place is adopted in neighboring area. Herskovits, Accultura-
tion, 1213.
32. In fact, in the 1933 edition of the Oxford English Dictionary (oed), there was
no listing for acculturation. By contrast, assimilation has a long history,
with the 1933 oed listing an early usage from 1605. Assimilate was rst
used in a religious context; for example, in 1628 the term was dened as to
become like God. The rst two denitions in 1933 were To make or be like,
and To be or become like. Murray et al., Oxford English Dictionary, s.v.
assimilate, assimilation, 510.
33. Malcolm Willey to mjh, April 6, 1928, Box 26, mjh-nu.
34. mjh to Willey, April 11, 1928, Box 26, mjh-nu.
36. Boas, Race, Language and Culture, 423.
37. Boas, Race, Language and Culture, 306.
38. mjh to Hornbostel, June 10, 1927, Box 9, mjh-nu. In a letter to Hurston the
Notes to Pages 6770
254
previous month, Boas suggested that African mannerisms were retained by
African Americans. Baron, Africa in the Americas, 105.
39. Jackson, Melville J. Herskovits, 1034.
40. McKee, Sociology, 12223. For Randolph Bourne, see Clayton, Forgotten
Prophet; Bourne, Trans-National America.
41. Higham, Strangers in the Land, 304, 392; Jackson, Melville J. Herskovits,
101. For the development of cultural pluralism in American thought, see also
Higham, Ethnic Pluralism; Matthews, Revolt against Americanism. De-
spite Kallens and Bournes embrace of cultural diversity, they omitted African
Americans from their discussions of American cultural pluralism. Recently,
Paul Robeson Jr. maintained that native Blacks are the only minority still
excluded from the melting pot. Roberson, Paul Robeson, Jr. Speaks to America,
114.
42. Bourne, Trans-National America, 266.
43. Bourne, Trans-National America, 272.
44. Higham, Send These to Me, 211.
45. Du Bois, Conservation of Races; Lewis, W. E. B. Du Bois: Biography of a
Race, 171.
46. Du Bois, Conservation of Races, 23.
47. Du Bois, Conservation of Races, 2425.
48. Lewis, W. E. B. Du Bois: Biography of a Race, 281.
49. Matthews, Revolt Against Americanism, 1415.
50. mjh to Edith Elliot, Board of Fellowships in the Biological Sciences, nrc,
January 27, 1926, Box 14, mjh-nu; Herskovits, Bush Negroes of Suriname
Daily Argosy (British Guiana) April 25, 1929, mjh-nu.
51. mjh to Edith Elliot, January 27, 1926.
52. In 1928 Du Bois told Herskovits that there was no decent study that ad-
dressed this question. mjh to Du Bois, November 26, 1928, Du Bois to mjh,
December 7, 1928, Box 7, mjh-nu.
53. Jackson, Melville Herskovits, 1056.
54. mjh to John Palmer, the Arts Club, Chicago, December 1, 1933, Box 19,
mjh-nu.
55. mjh to Hornbostel, April 30, 1927, Box 9, mjh-nu.
56. Hornbostel to mjh, May 29, 1927, Hornbostel to mjh, June 27, 1927, Box 9,
mjh-nu.
57. mjh to Hornbostel, June 10, 1927, Box 9, mjh-nu.
58. mjh to Hornbostel, October 5, 1927, Box 9, mjh-nu.
59. mjh to Willey, October 29, 1927, Box 26, mjh-nu.
60. mjh to Todd, December 14, 1927, mjh to Boas, January 25, 1928, Box 24,
mjh-nu.
61. Zumwalt, Wealth and Rebellion, 114; Deacon, Elsie Clews Parsons, 24778.
Notes to Pages 7074
255
62. Abrahams, foreword to Wealth and Rebellion, x; mjh to Parsons, April 30,
1927, Box 18, mjh-nu.
63. Herskovits and Herskovits, Suriname Folk-Lore, vii, 2; Herskovits and Hers-
kovits, Rebel Destiny, viixiv; mjh to Parsons, December 6, 1927, Box 18,
mjh-nu.
64. Herskovits and Herskovits, Suriname Folk-Lore, vii, 2; Herskovits and Hers-
kovits, Rebel Destiny, viixiv; Whitten and Szwed, introduction to Afro-
American Anthropology, 32.
65. Herskovits, Bush Negroes of Suriname.
66. mjh to Parsons, December 6, 1927, Box 18, mjh-nu; Herskovits, Trip to
Africa, 1011.
67. mjh to Boas, November 9, 1927, mjh to Boas, December 6, 1927, Reel 27,
Boas Papers; Boas to mjh, December 3, 1927, Boas to mjh, January 30, 1928,
Box 3, mjh-nu; mjh to Parsons, December 6, 1927, Box 18, mjh-nu.
68. Hilary Conroy, Meet Melville Herskovits, Daily Northwestern, March 13,
1940, Box 18, mjh-nu.
69. Herskovits, Personal DiarySurinam, June 1928August, 1928, June 30,
July 3, 11, 17, 1928, entries, Box 6, mjh-sc; Herskovits, Trip to Africa, 10
11.
70. Herskovits, Second Northwestern University Expedition. There were
three distinct Maroon peoples: the Saramacca, among whom the Hersko-
vitses spent most of their two eld trips; the Awka; and the Boni. Herskovits
and Herskovits, Rebel Destiny, viiviii.
71. Denver (Colorado) News, June 9, 1929, mjh-nu.
72. Herskovits and Herskovits, Rebel Destiny, 1112.
75. Herskovits, Personal DiarySurinam, June 1928August 1928.
76. Mead to mjh, February 1, 1962, Box 97, mjh-nu.
77. Price, Guiana Maroons, 5657. See also Blier, Field Days.
78. Herskovits to Robert Lynd, January 13, 1930, Box 13, mjh-nu.
79. Margaret Mead to mjh, February 1, 1962, mjh to Mead, February 14, 1962,
Box 97, mjh-nu.
80. Baron, Africa in the Americas, 229, 263.
81. Ottenberg quoted in Blier, Field Days, 12.
82. The last two weeks of the expedition were marked by conicts with the native
workers over pay and contentious bargaining with villagers for native goods.
Surinam Diary, 1929, Box 6, mjh-sc.
83. Baron, Africa in the Americas, 20810.
84. Herskovits and Herskovits, Rebel Destiny, 26370.
Notes to Pages 7478
256
86. Baron, Africa in the Americas, 2078; Price and Price, Afro-American Arts,
4445.
87. Herskovits quoted in Stocking, Race, Culture, and Evolution, 145.
88. Herskovits, Personal DiarySurinam, June 1928August, 1928, July 19
entry.
89. Herskovits, Bush Negroes of Suriname; Herskovits, Personal Diary
Surinam, June 1928August 1928.
90. Herskovits, Bush Negroes of Suriname; Herskovits, Personal Diary
Surinam, June 1928August 1928.
91. Herskovits, Trip to Africa, 1112.
92. Diary of Mrs. Henrietta (Hart) Herskovits; News Clipping, n.d., Box 1,
mjh-sc; Herskovits, interview.
94. mjh to Hornbostel, November 18, 1929, Box 9, mjh-nu.
95. mjh to Hornbostel, November 18, 1929; Herskovits, Second Northwestern
University Expedition, 393402.
96. mjh to Hornbostel, May 12, 1930, Box 9, mjh-nu.
97. Hornbostel to mjh, July 4, 1930, Box 9, mjh-nu. Later on, Herskovits em-
ployed Hornbostel, at the Staatliche Akademische Hochschule Fur Musik in
Berlin, Phonogramm-Archiv, in the transcription of Herskovitss eld re-
cordings. Hornbostel gave the work to his assistant, M. Kolinski. Hornbostel
to mjh, September 29, 1931, mjh-nu.
99. Herskovits, Second Northwestern University Expedition.
101. Herskovits, Second Northwestern University Expedition; mjh to Boas,
October 5, 1929, Box 3, mjh-nu.
102. mjh to Boas, October 22, 1928, Box 3, mjh-nu.
104. Herskovits, Trip to Africa, 1011; Herskovits, Bush Negroes of Suri-
name.
107. Herskovits, The Negro in the New World.
108. Herskovits, New World Negro.
110. Herskovits and Herskovits, Rebel Destiny; Herskovits and Herskovits, Suri-
name Folk-Lore.
111. Cowley, Books in Review; Sapir, Bush Negro of Dutch Guiana; Puckett,
review of Rebel Destiny; Mead, review of Rebel Destiny; Herzog, review of
Suriname Folklore; van Panhuys, review of Suriname Folk-Lore; Gillin, review
of Suriname Folklore.
Notes to Pages 7880
257
112. mjh to Boas, June 18, 1930, Box 3, mjh-nu.
113. mjh to Parsons, April 29, 1930, Box 18, mjh-nu.
114. mjh to Boas, May 22, 1930, Box 3, mjh-nu.
115. mjh to Parsons, May 14, 1930, Box 18, mjh-nu; Boas to mjh, May 15, 1930,
Box 3, mjh-nu.
116. mjh to Du Bois, December 2, 1930, Du Bois to mjh, December 10, 1930,
mjh to Du Bois, December 16, 1930, Box 7, mjh-nu.
117. West African Field Trip Journals, 1931, Box 9, mjh-sc; Blier, Field Days.
118. West African Field Trip, 1931, Ashanti Field NotesWest Africa, Box 9,
mjh-sc.
119. mjh to Boas, April 7, 1931, Reel 32, Boas Papers.
120. West African Field Trip, 1931.
121. mjh to Boas, April 18, 1931, Reel 32, Boas Papers.
122. Herskovits, Dahomey.
123. Herskovits, Dahomey, vol. 1, 25.
124. McKinley, Lure of Africa, 15051; Herskovits, Negro Art; Herskovits, Art
of the Congo.
125. Herskovits and Herskovits, Art of Dahomey: I; Herskovits and Hersko-
vits, Art of Dahomey: II.
126. Harms, Wars of August. Harms argued that this was a general tendency on
the part of anthropologists when writing historical ethnographies.
127. Cauleld, Culture and Imperialism, 18386.
128. Herskovits, Dahomey, vol. 2, 349.
129. In 1974 Edward McKinley maintained of Dahomey, The work was of such
high quality that it has yet to be superseded. McKinley, Lure of Africa, 150.
130. Earthy, review of Dahomey; Cline, review of Dahomey.
131. Linton, Civilization in Dahomey. A later volume by the Herskovitses, Da-
homean Narrative: A Cross-Cultural Analysis, dealing with the folklore of Da-
homey was not published until 1958. In this case the reviews were mixed, the
main criticism was that the stories were translated from the original Fon to
French and then written for the rst time and in English! . . . the loss of the
original text removes that condition which would have made it possible for
other scholars independently to control the version which R. R. Marett
considered indispensable to satisfy the demands of science. McCall, review
of Dahomean Narrative, 256. Hortense Powdermaker favorably reviewed Da-
homean Narrative, a collection of 155 myths and tales, preceded by a discus-
sion of Dahomean narratives as literature and a critique of signicant theories
about mythology. Powdermaker said that this book makes us more aware
of how these Africans are like all other people and we also appreciate the ways
in which their culture diers. Powdermaker, review of Dahomean Narrative,
Box 85, mjh-nu. See also Berry, review of Dahomean Narrative; Simpson,
review of Dahomean Narrative.
Notes to Pages 8084
258
132. Locke, Out of Africa.
133. Woodson, review of Dahomey.
134. mjh to Parsons, July 29, 1933, Parsons to mjh, August 8, 1933, Box 18, mjh-
nu.
135. mjh to Boas, September 6, 1933, Boas to mjh, November 28, 1933, Box 4,
mjh-nu.
136. Lieberman, Melville J. Herskovits, 165. Lieberman called Herskovits the
father of American anthropology in the Caribbean.
137. Herskovits, Life in a Haitian Valley, 11; Brathwaite, introduction to Life in a
Haitian Valley, xv; Renda, Taking Haiti, 12, 100.
138. mjh to Parsons, October 8, 1934, Box 18, Folder 3, mjh-nu; mjh to Willey,
October 1, 1934, Box 26, mjh-nu; Renda, Taking Haiti, 21213.
139. Herskovits, Life in a Haitian Valley.
140. Renda, Taking Haiti, 24650.
142. Herskovits, Voodoo Nonsense.
143. mjh to Parsons, October 8, 1934, Box 18, mjh-nu; mjh to Willey, October 1,
1934, Box 26, mjh-nu.
144. Herskovits, Life in a Haitian Valley, 63, 1058.
145. Herskovits, Life in a Haitian Valley, 251.
149. mjh to Parsons, October 8, 1934, Box 18, mjh-nu; mjh to Willey, October 1,
1934, Box 26, mjh-nu.
151. Du Bois, Of Our Spiritual Strivings, 29.
154. Puckett, review of Life in a Haitian Valley; Alain Locke, Jingo, Counter-
Jingo and Us, Opportunity, Box 18, mjh-nu. In 1938 the Haitian govern-
ment awarded Herskovits the Order of Honor and Merit for Life in a Haitian
Valley. New York Times, September 18, 1938, mjh-nu. More recently, anthro-
pologist Sidney W. Mintz called Life in a Haitian Valley a pioneering work,
probably the rst modern objective account of rural Haiti prepared by an
outsider. He continued, As a ground-breaking anthropological study of a
society previously either ignored or slandered by casual incompetents, it is of
rst importance. Mintz, In Memoriam, 46.
155. Benedict, Truth About Voodoo in Haiti, review of Life in a Haitian Valley,
New York Herald Tribune, April 18, 1937, Box 18, mjh-nu.
156. Robert Redeld, review of Life in a Haitian Valley, Annals of the American
Notes to Pages 8487
259
Academy of Political and Social Science 193 (September 1937), 2089, Box 18,
mjh-nu.
157. Herzog, Anatomy of Accommodation.
158. Johnson, review of Life in a Haitian Valley. For Johnsons writings on the
culture of African Americans, see Johnson, Negro Spiritual, 170; Johnson,
Folk Culture on St. Helena Island.
159. mjh to Dr. Robert M. Lester, Carnegie Corp. of New York, January 8, 1940,
Box 5, mjh-nu.
160. Herskovits and Herskovits, Trinidad Village, v. Ironically, although they did
nd African inuences, they did not nd a Shango cult in Toco.
161. Herskovits and Herskovits, Trinidad Village, 28788.
165. Herskovits and Herskovits, Trinidad Village, 167, 305.
167. Catherine H. Berndt, review of Trinidad Village, Oceania 19, September
1948, Box 46, mjh-nu; T. S. Simey, The Social Nature of the West Indian
Negro, review of Trinidad Village, Geographic Journal 111 (September 1948),
25457, Box 46, mjh-nu; Horace Miner, review of Trinidad Village, Ameri-
can Sociological Review, April 1948, Box 41, mjh-nu.
168. Simey, Social Nature of the West Indian Negro.
169. Eric Williams, In the Land of Rum and Coca-Cola, review of Trinidad
Village, Journal of Negro Education 16 (Fall 1947): 54850, Box 41, mjh-nu;
Herskovits and Herskovits, Trinidad Village, 12425.
170. mjh to Dr. Charles Thompson, editor, Journal of Negro Education, February
19, 1948, Box 42, mjh-nu.
171. Zora Neale Hurston, The Transplanted Negro, review of Trinidad Village,
New York Herald Tribune, March 9, 1947, Box 41, mjh-nu.
173. Joseph H. Willits, Director, the Social Sciences, Rockefeller Foundation, to
mjh, June 12, 1941, H. M. Gillette, Assistant Comptroller, Rockefeller Foun-
dation to Dr. Fred D. Fagg Jr., Dean of Faculties, nu, June 24, 1941, Box 20,
mjh-nu; Herskovits, Report of Field Work in Brazil, 19411942, 14, Box
20, mjh-nu.
174. mjh to Willits, October 16, 1924, including Report of Field Work in Brazil,
Box 20, mjh-nu.
175. Herskovits, interview; Herskovitss daughter, Jean, believes that her father
wrote less about Brazil than his other eldtrips due to the scary association of
Brazil with his heart attack. Due to Herskovitss work for the Bureau of
Economic Warfare during World War II, his all-consuming focus on the
Program of African Studies after the war, and his interest in not interrupting
Notes to Pages 8791
260
his daughters schooling, he never undertook another ethnographic eldtrip
after Brazil. Herskovits, interview.
176. Herskovits, Report of Field Work in Brazil, 58; Herskovits and Hersko-
vits, Negroes of Brazil, 26369.
177. Herskovits, Report of Field Work in Brazil, 58; Herskovits and Hersko-
vits, Negroes of Brazil, 26369.
178. Herskovits and Herskovits, Negroes of Brazil, 26979.
179. Herskovits Report of Field Work in Brazil.
180. Herskovits, Southernmost Outpost.
181. Robert T. Crane, Executive Director, ssrc, to mjh, January 22, 1935, Box 22,
mjh-nu; Robert Redeld, Robert Linton, and Melvin J. Herskovits, A
Memorandum for the Study of Acculturation, American Anthropologist 38:
14952; Man 35: 162, 14548; Africa 9: ix, 114118; and Oceania 6: 22933;
Stocking, Selected Papers, 19.
182. Herskovits, Acculturation, 10. In 1948, in Man and His Works, Herskovits
changed this formulation to include moderate and sporadic contact as some-
times leading to acculturation as in the example of missionary visits. Gould
and Kolb, Dictionary of the Social Sciences, s.v. Acculturation, by Keesing, 7.
183. Herskovits, Acculturation, 10.
ing, 6.
185. mjh to Leslie Spier, March 5, 1936, Spier to Schapera, February 26, 1936,
Box 1, mjh-nu; Baron, Primitive Cultures, 4.
186. mjh to Leslie Spier, March 5, 1936; Spier to Schapera, February 26, 1936.
187. Baron, Primitive Cultures, 67.
188. Herskovits, Signicance of the Study of Acculturation.
189. Beals, Acculturation, 37677; Baron, Primitive Cultures, 67.
190. Donald Young to mjh, April 19, 1937, Box 22, mjh-nu.
191. Robert T. Crane, Executive Director, ssrc, to mjh, November 22, 1937, Box
22, mjh-nu.
192. Donald Young to mjh, April 19, 1937, Box 22, mjh-nu.
193. mjh to Donald Young, November 12, 1937, Box 22, mjh-nu.
194. Robert T. Crane, Executive Director, ssrc, to mjh, November 22, 1937, Box
22, mjh-nu.
195. Young to mjh, April 19, 1937, Box 22, mjh-nu.
196. mjh to Young, December 16, 1937, Box 22, mjh-nu. In the preface to his
book, Herskovits did acknowledge the role of the ssrc and its Subcommittee
on Acculturation. Herskovits, Acculturation, v; Young to mjh, April 19, 1937,
Box 22, Folder 4, mjh-nu.
197. Herskovits, Acculturation, 911, 15.
198. Herskovits, Acculturation, 1617. Herskovitss focus on acculturation was
partially determined by his choice of subjects, Africans and African Ameri-
Notes to Pages 9195
261
cans. Cultural anthropologists who studied in Oceania were usually studying
cultures that had had little contact with outside cultures. By contrast, anthro-
pologists who studied African cultures, like those who studied Native Ameri-
cans, were faced with a dierent dynamic. African cultures had had much
greater contact with other African cultures and with externalEuropean,
Arabcultures. Thus Herskovits insisted that acculturation studies were an
important part of cultural anthropology, while anthropologists working in
more isolated cultures did not.
199. Herskovits, Acculturation, 3132.
200. mjh to Dr. Bernhard Stern, June 2, 1941, Box 23, mjh-nu.
201. Sills, International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, s.v. Acculturation, by
Spicer, 2126.
ing, 6.
ing, 6.
204. Gould and Kolb, Dictionary of the Social Sciences, s.v. Assimilation, by Faris,
38.
ing, 7.
4. Subverting the Myth of the Negro Past
1. British Broadcasting Corporation, London, England, America To-Day,
Box 4, mjh-nu.
2. Dollard to Keppel, memo, July 23, 1942, with quote from October 24, 1935,
minutes of Board of Trustees meeting, Negro Study General Correspon-
dence (nsgc), Reel 91, Carnegie Corporation of New York Papers, Colum-
bia University Rare Book and Manuscript Library, New York (hereafter cited
as Carnegie Papers); Jackson, Gunnar Myrdal, 1622.
3. Lagemann, Politics of Knowledge, 67, 99103; Jackson, Gunnar Myrdal, 10
22.
4. Herskovits to Frederick Keppel, Carnegie Corporation, April 8, 1936, Box
14, mjh-nu.
5. Donald Young to mjh, December 27, 1936, Box 22, mjh-nu.
6. Herskovits to Donald Young, ssrc, January 2, 1936? (probably incorrectly
dated, should be 1937), Box 22, mjh-nu.
7. Young to Keppel, January 30, 1937, Box 14, mjh-nu.
8. Herskovits to Donald Young, January 2, 1937, Box 22, mjh-nu. John Stan-
eld has argued that blacks involved in the Myrdal study were little more than
research assistants with little decision-making responsibility. Staneld, Phi-
lanthropy and Jim Crow, 142, 179.
Notes to Pages 9598
262
9. Frederick Keppel, memo, July 15, 1937, nsgc, Reel 90, Carnegie Papers;
Donald Young to mjh, April 19, 1937, Box 22, mjh-nu.
10. Jackson, Melville Herskovits, 117.
11. Jackson, Gunnar Myrdal, 33.
12. Keppel to Myrdal, August 15, 1937, nsgc, Frederick Keppel, memo, July 15,
1937, nsgc, Reel 90, Carnegie Papers.
13. Young to mjh, December 27, 1936, Young to Herskovits, January 30, 1937,
Herskovits to Young, February 1, 1937, Box 22, mjh-nu; Herskovits to
Keppel, January 2, 1937, Young to Keppel, January 30, 1937, Box 14, mjh-
nu.
14. Herskovits to Donald Young, ssrc, January 2, 1937, Young to Herskovits,
January 30, 1937, Box 22, mjh-nu; Young to Keppel, January 30, 1937, Box
14, mjh-nu.
15. Young to Keppel, January 30, 1937, Box 14, mjh-nu.
16. Young to Keppel, January 30, 1937.
17. Myrdal to Keppel, October 7, 1937, nsgc, Reel 90, Carnegie Papers.
18. Jackson, Melville Herskovits, 118. After Myrdal accepted the directorship,
Keppel advised Herskovits that he would have Myrdal contact him early in
the proceedings. Keppel and mjh, interview, September 1, 1938, Carnegie
Corporation Grant Files, Box 169, Manuscript Collections, Columbia Uni-
versity Libraries, New York (hereafter cited as ccg Files).
19. Resolution b1552 of Executive Committee, Carnegie Corporation, January
20, 1938, nsgc, Reel 90, Carnegie Papers.
20. Jackson, Gunnar Myrdal, xvii.
21. Myrdal to Keppel, January 28, 1939, Box 14, mjh-nu.
22. Myrdal to Keppel, January 28, 1939.
25. Gunnar Myrdal, Comments by Melville Herskovits, Northwestern Univ.,
February 27, 1939, Gunnar Myrdal Study, Schomburg Center.
26. Myrdal, Comments by Melville Herskovits.
27. Dollard, record of interview with Myrdal, March 7, 1939, nsgc, Reel 91,
Carnegie Papers.
28. Memorandum of Interview, Dr. Myrdal and Prof. Herskovits, June 1, 1939,
Myrdal Study, Schomburg Center; Myrdal to mjh, June 21, 1939, Box 14,
mjh-nu. Herskovits and Myrdal later reconrmed their agreement. Myrdal,
Memorandum on Disposition of Study of American Negro, September 10,
1939, mjh to Myrdal, October 2, 1939, Myrdal to mjh, October 16, 1939,
Box 14, mjh-nu.
29. mjh to Myrdal, July 9, 1939, Box 14, mjh-nu.
30. Myrdal to mjh, July 17, 1939, Myrdal Study, Schomburg Center.
Notes to Pages 98103
263
31. mjh to Myrdal, July 31, 1939, mjh to Myrdal, October 18, 1939, Box 14,
mjh-nu.
33. Myrdal to Keppel, January 28, 1939, Box 14, mjh-nu.
34. Myrdal, Memorandum on Disposition of Study of American Negro.
36. Young, Black Writers, x, 35, 1517, 20, 2425, 4161; Holloway, Confront-
ing the Veil, 15, 15355, 167, 19697.
37. Du Bois quoted in Lewis, W. E. B. Du Bois: The Fight for Equality, 331.
38. Du Bois, Segregation, 20.
39. Fredrickson, Black Liberation, 15355.
40. Young, Black Writers, 15; Meier and Rudwick, Black History, 14.
41. Young, Black Writers, 2025.
42. Jackson, Gunnar Myrdal, 13031; Kirby, Race, Class, and Politics; Henry,
Ralph Bunche, 44, 5264; Sitko, New Deal for Blacks, 25860.
43. Jackson, Between Socialism and Nationalism, 128, 133.
44. Jackson, Between Socialism and Nationalism, 128.
45. Frazier, Traditions and Patterns, 19294.
46. Frazier, Negro Family. Anthony Platts biography attempts to rehabilitate
Frazier from his association with the 1965 Moynihan Report, which empha-
sized the pathology of black life in America. Platt also emphasizes the dier-
ences between Fraziers academic and nonacademic writings. As an academic,
Frazier embraced the role of detached scholar, while in his nonacademic
writings he spoke out against oppression. Platt, E. Franklin Frazier.
47. Frazier, Negro Family, 479.
48. Frazier, Traditions and Patterns, 19294.
49. Park, Race and Culture, 72.
52. Stewart, introduction to Race Contacts and Interracial Relations, xlivxlviii;
Henry, Ralph Bunche, 5657.
54. Franklin, Living Our Stories, 219.
55. Thuesen, Taking the Vows, 297.
56. mjh to Parsons, November 19, 1931, Box 18, Folder 3, mjh-nu.
57. mjh to Parsons, November 18, 1930, Box 18, Folder 3, mjh-nu.
58. Guy B. Johnson to Myrdal, memorandum, August 26, 1939, Box 131, Folder
27, E. Franklin Frazier Papers, Moorland-Spingarn Research Center, How-
ard University (hereafter cited as Frazier Papers); Jackson, Gunnar Myrdal,
109.
59. Herskovits, Preliminary Memorandum on the Problem of African Surviv-
264
als, ca. January 1, 1940, Box 14, mjh-nu. In this statement Herskovits ig-
nores the inuence of cultural change in America.
60. Herskovits, Preliminary Memorandum.
62. Surinam Diary, 1929, Box 6, mjh-sc.
64. Herskovits, Preliminary Memorandum. On Nott, see Tucker, Science and
Politics, 2122.
65. Herskovits, Preliminary Memorandum. The black singer, actor, and activist
Paul Robeson was another key intellectual who sought to spread the idea of
the African cultural inuence on black Americans. According to his biogra-
pher, Robeson diered from many black artists in his support for an African
cultural heritage that understood the primary importance of spiritual values,
in contrast to the desiccated rationalism, and the worship of technology and
material accumulation, that characterized the West. Robesons worldview
was one that combined . . . ethnic integrity and international solidarity. He
believed in the ultimate goal of a humane society that was simultaneously
anti-assimilationist and cosmopolitan. Duberman, Paul Robeson, 17073. At
a 1935 New York concert, Robeson oered evidence that American Ne-
groes, contrary to general belief, have retained substantial remnants of an-
cestral African culture, including aspects of speech, spirituals, and folklore.
Robeson also recounted his experience making the lm Sanders of the River in
West Africa and meeting an Ibo man from Nigeria who used words that
Robesons father, who was born a slave, had used in America. Like Woodson
and Du Bois, Robeson also rejected assimilationism: [T]o allow our heri-
tage to become submerged by the white mans culture makes for corruption
and denies our African birthright. U.S. Negroes Retain Culture of Africa,
Asserts Robeson, Chicago Daily News, October 31, 1935, Box 18, mjh-nu.
66. Lewis, W. E. B. Du Bois: Biography of a Race, 22223.
67. Du Bois, The Negro; Lewis, W. E. B. Du Bois: Biography of a Race, 46162.
68. Goggin, Carter G. Woodson, 76.
69. Woodson, African Background Outlined. For African survivals, see 16875.
71. Herskovits, review of African Background; Goggin, Carter G. Woodson, 183;
mjh to Elsie Clews Parsons, June 8, 1936, Box 18, mjh-nu; mjh to Donald
Young, July 8, 1936, Box 22, mjh-nu.
72. Meier to mjh, September 27, 1954, mjh to Meier, October 4, 1954, Box 68,
mjh-nu.
73. Lewis, W. E. B. Du Bois: Biography of a Race, 19091, 200209, 21925.
75. St. Clair Drake, Herskovits and African Diaspora Studies: An Edited and
Amended Version of an Address Delivered on May 27, 1988, at the Schom-
265
burg Center for Research in Black Culture, in Selected Papers of a Con-
ference: Melville J. Herskovits and the Future of Africana Studies, A Re-
search Symposium, May 2728, 1988, Schomburg Center for Research in
Black Culture, typescript copy in the authors possession.
76. Frances Herskovits to Elsie Clews Parsons, December 9, 1929, Box 18, mjh-
nu.
78. Guy B. Johnson to Gunnar Myrdal, n.d., enclosed with letter, Myrdal to
Herskovits, January 17, 1940, Box 14, mjh-nu.
79. mjh to Myrdal, January 20, 1940, Box 14, mjh-nu.
80. Myrdal to Bunche, January 18, 1940, Box 29, Ralph J. Bunche Papers,
Schomburg Center.
81. Lagemann, Politics of Knowledge, 142.
82. Frederick Keppel, Carnegie Corp., to the Members of the Sta of the Negro
Study, December 12, 1940, Herskovits to Samuel Stouer, University of
Chicago, December 16, 1940, Box 13, mjh-nu; Jackson, Gunnar Myrdal,
14042, 160. During Myrdals absence, sociologist Samuel Stouer of the
University of Chicago headed the study.
83. Memorandum on the Status of the Negro Study, Myrdal to Trustees, July 9,
1941, nsgc, Reel 91, Carnegie Papers. John Staneld has claimed that Hers-
kovits, because of a dispute with Myrdal published Myth separately from the
main study. Staneld, Philanthropy and Jim Crow, 16061. I have found no
direct evidence of this. Stanelds only citation for his statement is the Myth
itself. After the publication of the Myth, Keppel wrote Herskovits that he read
the book with great pleasure and prot. . . . Whether or not you will succeed
in shaking the habit of thought of the white writers and teachers, Heaven
knows, but the book will be most welcome to the thoughtful Negroes.
Keppel to mjh, December 18, 1941, nsgc, Reel 91, Carnegie Papers.
84. In April 1949 Harper Brothers advised Herskovits that total sales of The Myth
of the Negro Past were 2,739 copies, with an additional 426 review copies and
other free copies distributed. mjh to Dr. Ordway Tead, Harper Brothers,
Publishers, April 8, 1949, Tead to mjh, April 13, 1949, Box 43, mjh-nu.
85. Herskovits, Myth of the Negro Past.
86. For a recent survey of the history of the study of the creation of African-
American culture, see Levine, African Culture.
87. Herskovits, Myth of the Negro Past, 1819.
90. Herskovits, Myth of the Negro Past, 223, 25153.
266
94. Herskovits, Myth of the Negro Past, 10; Herskovits, Acculturation.
96. Herskovits, What Has Africa Given America?; originally published in New
Republic 84 (1935): 9294.
97. Herskovits, Myth of the Negro Past, 3132; Woodson, review of Life in a
Haitian Valley.
98. Frazier quoted in Herskovits, Myth of the Negro Past, 32. The Frazier quote
comes from Frazier, Traditions and Patterns, 194.
102. Johnson, review of Myth of the Negro Past. Frazier, The Negros Cultural
Past.
103. Herbert Aptheker, review of Myth of the Negro Past, New Masses (February 17,
1942), Box 18, mjh-nu.
104. Carter G. Woodson, review of Myth of the Negro Past, Journal of Negro History
(January 1942), 11518, Box 18, mjh-nu.
105. W. E. B. Du Bois, review of Myth of the Negro Past, Annals of the Ameri-
can Academy of Political and Social Science 222 (July 1942): 22627, Box 18,
mjh-nu.
106. Szwed, American Anthropological Dilemma, 15758; Benedict, Race,
132.
107. Hulsizer, review of Myth of the Negro Past.
108. Ruth Benedict, review of Myth of the Negro Past, in New York Herald Tribune,
January 18, 1942, Box 18, mjh-nu.
111. Donald Campbell, interview by Walter Jackson, June 9, 1978, Northwestern
University, Evanston il, notes from Jacksons tape recording in the authors
possession.
112. Alain Locke, review of Myth of the Negro Past, in Multicultural Education News
(June 1942), Box 18, mjh-nu.
113. Myrdal, American Dilemma, 75253.
116. Frazier, The Negros Cultural Past.
118. Frazier, Negro Family, 57; Herskovits, Myth of the Negro Past, 181.
121. Johnson, review of Myth of the Negro Past, 290.
267
122. Platt, Frazier, 127.
123. Frazier to Arnold Rose, memorandum, December 14, 1942, Box 131, Frazier
Papers.
124. Platt, Frazier, 127.
125. Frazier, The Negro in the United States, 68081.
126. Sitko, New Deal for Blacks, 2223; Fredrickson, Black Liberation, 7680,
15253. On black nationalism, see also Stuckey, Slave Culture.
127. Frazier to Arnold Rose, December 14, 1942, Box 131, Frazier Papers.
128. mjh to Roger Bastide, ca. 1940, Box 3, mjh-nu.
129. mjh to Ashley Montagu, May 14, 1940, Box 13, mjh-nu.
130. Holloway, Confronting the Veil, 155.
132. Fortes to mjh, July 16, 1944, Box 28, mjh-nu.
133. mjh to Fortes, August 4, 1944, Box 28, mjh-nu.
134. Frank Marshall Davis, review of The Myth of the Negro Past, Chicago Bee,
January 12, 1942, Box 18, mjh-nu. In 1944 Davis began teaching classes in
the history of jazz at the Abraham Lincoln School in Chicago. In these classes
Davis, based in part on listening to recordings made by Herskovits in Africa
and the West Indies, emphasized the African inuences on jazz music. Davis,
Livin the Blues, 28485, 290.
135. Frazier to Arnold Rose, memorandum, December 14, 1942, Box 131, Frazier
Papers.
136. Frazier, The Negro in the United States, 34.
137. Baker, From Savage to Negro, 198203.
138. Szwed, American Anthropological Dilemma, 160.
140. Billingsley, Climbing Jacobs Ladder, 8384.
141. Herskovits, Preface to the Beacon Press Edition, xviixxi; Meier and Rud-
wick, Black History, 136. An important study of black culture during this
period was Drake and Cayton, Black Metropolis.
142. Ricks, Some Aspects of the Religious Music of the United States Negro.
144. Walter P. Zenner, Mentoring and Ethnicity in Midcentury American An-
thropology: Reections on Jewish Identity, 1415, unpublished paper, copy
in the authors possession.
145. Herskovits, Ahistorical Approach.
149. Scott, Contempt and Pity, 8185.
268
151. Ellison, Shadow and Act, 301.
5. Objectivity and the Development of Negro Studies
1. Lyons, Uneasy Partnership, 2223.
2. Smith, Social Science, 2324.
3. Fink, Progressive Intellectuals, 2637.
4. Karl, Uneasy State, 60.
5. Lyons, Uneasy Partnership, 2631.
6. Fink, Progressive Intellectuals, 2637.
7. Bannister, Sociology and Scientism, 5.
8. Fisher, Fundamental Development, 45.
9. Karl, Uneasy State, 6062.
11. Smith, Social Science, 4447, 15254, 266.
13. Smith, Social Science, 44, 12054.
17. For a recent attempt to dene African diasporic studies, see Palmer, Den-
ing and Studying the Modern African Diaspora.
18. Du Bois, Pan-African Congresses, 671; Du Bois, Africa and the American
Negro, 44.
19. Sterling Stuckey, Melville J. Herskovits, a Pioneer in African-American
Studies, in The Opening of The Melville J. Herskovits Library of African
Studies, Northwestern University Library, October 20, 1970, 28, unpub-
lished paper, copy in the authors possession.
20. Drake, Diaspora Studies, 486.
22. Dinnerstein, Anti-Semitism, 87.
23. Malcolm Willey to mjh, ca. July 1927, Box 26, mjh-nu; Arthur J. Todd,
chairman, sociology department, Northwestern University, to mjh, June 27,
1927, Todd to mjh, August 14, 1927, Box 24, mjh-nu; mjh to A. Irving
Hallowell, July 4, 1927, Box 9, mjh-nu.
24. Philip Schoenberg, Cleveland, to mjh, November 11, 1930, mjh to Schoen-
berg, December 2, 1930, Box 23, mjh-nu.
25. mjh to Herbert J. Seligmann, naacp, October 8, 1928, Box 21, mjh-nu.
26. Seligmann to mjh, October 15, 1928, mjh to Seligmann, October 22, 1928,
Box 21, mjh-nu.
269
27. Much of the literature on the World War I era disillusionment of social
scientists with reformist activity has ignored the anthropologists, instead
focusing on the activities of sociologists, political scientists, and journalists.
For example, see Fisher, Fundamental Development; Smith, Social Science;
Karl, Uneasy State; Bannister, Sociology and Scientism; Lyons, Uneasy Part-
nership.
29. Herskovits, Applied Anthropology, 215.
32. mjh to Wingate Todd, March 17, 1936, Box 24, mjh-nu; Herskovits, Ap-
plied Anthropology, 222.
34. mjh to Mrs. M. L. Rhone, Omaha Social Settlement House, February 19,
1932, Box 20, mjh-nu.
35. mjh to Wingate Todd, March 17, 1936, Box 24, mjh-nu.
36. Herskovits, review of Mans Most Dangerous Myth.
37. Gorman, Left Intellectuals, 9698; Barkan, Retreat of Scientic Racism, 130.
39. mjh to M. I. Finkelstein, secretary, American Committee for Democracy and
Intellectual Freedom, October 23, 1929, Box 3, mjh-nu.
40. Morris R. Cohen to mjh, January 24, 1934, Box 6, mjh-nu.
41. Experts Review Negro Prejudice, Daily Northwestern, December 7, 1938,
mjh-sc.
42. mjh to Franklyn Snyder, March 8, 1947, Box 40, mjh-nu.
43. Security Investigation Data Form.
44. mjh to A. D. Peterson, Cosmos Club, May 21, 1943, Box 30, mjh-nu.
45. mjh to Edith Elliot, Board of Fellowships in the Biological Sciences, nrc,
January 27, 1926, Box 14, mjh-nu; Herskovits, Bush Negroes of Suri-
name; Jackson, Melville Herskovits, 1056.
46. Smith, Social Science, 95. Smith observes that foundations ignored political
scientists during the 1920s because foundations did not want to fund studies
that might seek to reform the political order.
47. Mintz, introduction to Myth of the Negro Past, ix.
48. Minutes of the Meeting of the Advisory Committee on Interracial Relations
of the Committee on Problems and Policies of the ssrc held in Washington,
January 22, 1927, Advisory Committee on Interracial Relations, Committee
Minutes, 19261929, Accession 1, Series 1.19, Box 173, Social Science Re-
search Council Papers, Rockefeller Archive Center (hereafter cited as ssrc
Papers).
270
52. mjh to Dr. Charles E. Merriam, chairman, Social Research Council, Febru-
ary 13, 1926, Box 22, mjh-nu.
53. mjh to Edith Elliot, January 27, 1926, Box 14, mjh-nu.
54. Herskovits received support from anthropologists John R. Swanton, Fay
Cooper Cole, and Ronald Dixon. mjh to Todd, November 3, 1926, Box 24,
mjh-nu.
55. Smith, Social Science, 35, 254; Fisher, Fundamental Development, 4144, 241
42.
56. mjh to Edith Elliot, January 27, 1926, Box 14, mjh-nu.
57. mjh to Todd, November 10, 1926, Box 24, mjh-nu.
58. Joseph Greenberg, interview by Walter A. Jackson, Stanford ca, December
30, 1978, tape recording in Jacksons possession.
59. Minutes of the ssrc, April 6, 1929, Accession 1, Series 9, Box 350, ssrc
Papers.
60. Barkan, Retreat of Scientic Racism, 11314; A. V. Kidder, chairman, Division
of Anthropology and Psychology, nrc, to Boas, October 19, 1926, Boas to T.
W. Todd, November 3, 1926, Reel 27, Boas Papers; mjh to Spero, January 4,
1927, Box 22, mjh-nu.
61. Stocking, Selected Papers, 11.
62. Abrahams, foreword to Wealth and Rebellion, x; Zumwalt, Wealth and Re-
bellion, 114.
63. Herskovits and Herskovits, Rebel Destiny, xiv; Boas to mjh, May 15, 1930,
Box 3, mjh-nu. After receiving funding for the Dahomey book, Herskovits
wrote Ralph Bunche, It is always amusing to see the inside wheels turn,
though they havent as much grease [Rockefeller] these days as they had in
the good old times. mjh to Bunche, October 22, 1937, Bunche Papers,
Schomburg Center.
64. Fisher, Fundamental Development, 94, 184, 2023, 27071.
65. Stocking, Selected Papers, 1112.
66. Herskovits, Life in a Haitian Valley, ix; mjh to Boas, September 6, 1933, Boas
to mjh, November 28, 1933, Box 4, mjh-nu; Keppel to mjh, January 17,
1936, Keppel to mjh, August 12, 1937, Box 5, mjh-nu; eg to Keppel, inter-
nal memo, December 1, 1936, Series 1, Box 278, ccg Files; Secretary to
Treasurer, Grant Form, Carnegie Corp., August 23, 1937, Series 1, Box 278,
ccg Files.
67. mjh to Boas, November 23, 1927, Boas Papers; Myrdal, American Dilemma,
89091.
68. William F. Ogburn, chairman, Committee on Problems and Policy, ssrc, to
mjh, October 17, 1928, mjh to Ogburn, October 22, 1928, Box 17, mjh-nu.
271
of the Committee on Problems and Policies of the ssrc, May 19, 1929. The
projects were A Proposed Further Study of the Comparative Abilities of
Whites and Negroes by C. W. Telford and An Investigation of Hereditary
and Social Inuences on Individual Dierences by Howard H. Long.
70. See extensive correspondence between Young and Herskovits, Box 22, mjh-
nu.
71. Greenberg, interview.
72. mjh to Keppel, October 7, 1938, Box 169, ccg Files; Keppel to mjh, March
31, 1939, Box 5, mjh-nu.
73. Herskovits and Herskovits, Trinidad Village, viiviii.
74. Philip Mosely to Herskovits, April 8, 1941, Box 20, mjh-nu; Janken, Rayford
W. Logan, 13436.
75. mjh to J. H. Willits, Rockefeller Foundation, April 10, 1941, Box 20, mjh-
nu.
76. mjh to Franklin Snyder, nu, April 29, 1941, H. M. Gillette, Assistant Comp-
troller, Rockefeller Foundation to Dr. Fred D. Fagg Jr., Dean of Faculties,
nu, June 24, 1941, Box 20, mjh-nu; Social Sciences Special Grant In Aid
Action No. Ra. ss4138 Northwestern UniversityProf. Melville Hersko-
vits, June 11, 1941, Rockefeller Foundation Papers, Record Group 1.1 Proj-
ects, Series 216 Illinois, Box 20, Folder 271, Rockefeller Archive Center.
77. From 1919 through the 1930s anthropology became an academic discipline at
a number of colleges including Northwestern University and the Universities
of Chicago, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Washington. The anthropology de-
partments became more social science oriented toward sociology and less
oriented toward biology, and more inuenced by British anthropology and
functionalism. Stocking, Selected Papers, 11.
78. mjh to Boas, July 14, 1927, Boas Papers. Herskovits also taught courses in
introductory anthropology, sociology, and social organization.
79. Proceedings: Conference on Negro Studies Called by the American Council
of Learned Societies, March 2930, 1940, Howard University, Washington
dc, 2078, Box 2, mjh-nu; Henry, Ralph Bunche, 63; Goggin, Countering
White Racist Scholarship; Meier and Rudwick, Black History, 109, 146. The
rst formal course in black history was oered at a white college in 1937 by
Max Yergan, former ymca secretary to South Africa and the rst black in-
structor at City College of New York. The next known black history course at
a white college was not introduced until 1956 by Leslie H. Fishel Jr. at
Oberlin College. Meier and Rudwick, Black History, 109, 146. Until 1980 the
American Historical Review published only one article by a black historian,
W. E. B. Du Bois, and prior to 1945 no articles by black historians were
published in the Mississippi Valley Historical Review. White historians such as
272
Herbert Aptheker who wrote on black subjects saw their submissions gener-
ally rejected. Other historians, like August Meier and Rayford Logan, who
recognized the bias against black history, did not even bother to submit
articles to the mainstream journals. Goggin, Countering White Racist
Scholarship, 35575. When white historians wrote about or lectured about
blacks, they generally treated them as racially or culturally inferior to whites.
The premier white historian of slavery, U. B. Phillips, justied slavery as
necessary due to blacks barbarous traits, menacing behavior, and reluctance
to work. Dillon, Ulrich Bonnell Phillips, 61, 11112.
80. McKee, Sociology, 133, 34243.
81. This folklore was appropriated by promoters of the New Negro movement
to fashion their identity in terms of African cultural continuities. Baker, From
Savage to Negro, 6, 14367.
of Learned Societies, 2078.
83. Gilpin, Charles S. Johnson.
84. Platt, E. Franklin Frazier.
85. Ford, Black Studies, 52. A survey of fourteen black colleges revealed that
during the 192122 school year, only fteen courses concerned with the black
experience were taught. Six of the colleges taught no black studies courses at
all. By the 193132 school year, however, fteen black colleges surveyed
taught forty-three such courses, and ten years later the number was sixty-ve.
Woodson taught the rst course at Howard in black history in 1919. In 1911
12 George E. Haynes began a black history course at Fisk University, while
Benjamin Brawley rst taught a black history course at Atlanta Baptist Col-
lege in 191213. Meier and Rudwick, Black History, 78.
86. mjh to Wingate Todd, March 30, 1930, Box 24, mjh-nu; Atlas, Bellow, 49.
87. David H. Stevens, memorandum, attending Modern Language Association
meetings at Northwestern, December 30, 1937, Series 1.4, Box 640, General
Education Board Papers, Rockefeller Foundation Archives, Pocantico Hills
ny (hereafter cited as geb Papers).
88. mjh to William Duryee, August 31, 1936, Box 7, mjh-nu.
89. mjh to President Walter Dill Scott, nu, February 20, 1933, Scott to mjh,
March 3, 1933, mjh-nu.
90. mjh to Boas, November 2, 1929, mjh to Boas, April 28, 1938, Box 4, mjh-
nu. Herskovits had been promoted to full professor in 1935. mjh to Boas,
June 25, 1935, Box 4, mjh-nu.
91. Northwestern University, Salary Schedule, Anthropology Department,
Box 17, mjh-nu.
92. mjh to Todd, October 22, 1931, Box 24, mjh-nu.
273
93. mjh to Dr. Gilberto Freyre, August 6, 1935, Box 7, mjh-nu; Herskovits,
Social History of the Negro.
94. mjh to Dr. Gilberto Freyre, August 6, 1935.
95. mjh to Roger Baldwin, July 10, 1925, Box 3, mjh-nu. Herskovits acknowl-
edged the work of all four assistants in the preface of The American Negro.
King later served as assistant historian, United States Museum at Gettysburg,
after appointment by Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes. Du Bois to mjh,
May 31, 1935, W. E. B. Du Bois Papers, University of Massachusetts, Am-
herst, Microlm at Duke University, Durham nc (hereafter cited as Du Bois
Papers). Locke to mjh, April 14, 1924, Box 13, mjh-nu.
96. Boas to Woodson, November 18, 1926, Woodson to Boas, November 19,
1926, Woodson to Boas, November 23, 1926, Reel 27, Boas Papers.
97. mjh to Roger Baldwin, Garland Fund, July 10, 1925, Box 3, mjh-nu; mjh to
Boas, March 3, 1925, Boas Papers.
98. mjh to American Council of Learned Societies (acls) (re: Frazier applica-
tion for fellowship), January 16, 1940, Box 7, mjh-nu; mjh to Waldo G.
Leland, (acls), March 12, 1940, Leland to mjh, March 6, 1940, Box 25,
mjh-nu; Turner to mjh, November 7, 1955, mjh to Turner, November 15,
1955, Box 73, mjh-nu.
99. Drake, Diaspora Studies, 486.
100. mjh to Dr. H. L. Harris, Rosenwald Fund, December 6, 1929, Box 20, mjh-
nu; mjh to Jackson Davis, General Education Board, January 27, 1930, Davis
to mjh, February 18, 1930, Box 5, mjh-nu. Davis did not oer any funding
because Cameron was married and we have no assurance of her employment
in the faculty of any institution which needs our assistance.
101. Cameron, Folk Beliefs.
102. Herskovits recommendation to ssrc for Hugh H. Smythe, ca. December 15,
1940, Box 22, mjh-nu.
103. Hugh H. Smythe to Hon. Secretary of State, Department of State, July 16,
1941; Herskovits to Richard Pattee, Division of Cultural Relations, Depart-
ment of State, July 23, 1941; A. M. Warren, Chief, Visa Division, Department
of State, to Hugh H. Smythe, August 20, 1941; Albert H. Cousins, American
Legation, Tegucigalpa, Honduras, to John H. Cabot, Division of the Ameri-
can Republics, Department of State, September 9, 1941; William M. Schurz,
Acting Assistant Chief, Division of Cultural Relations, Department of State,
to Hugh H. Smythe, November 7, 1941; Smythe to Pattee, April 5, 1942; all
in Record Group 59, Box 14, National Archives, Washington dc.
104. Herskovits to Conference Board of Associated Research Councils, October
2, 1950, Box 54, mjh-nu.
105. Biographical Notes, Hugh H. Smythe, in Finding Aid, Hugh H. and
Mabel M. Smythe, A Register of their Papers in the Library of Congress,
274
prepared by T. Michael Womack with the assistance of Patricia Craig, Sheila
Day, and Susie Moody, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Wash-
ington dc, 1994.
106. Cole, Conversations, 1822. Cole, then Johnnetta Betsch, won a fellowship of
$2,500 in anthropology at Northwestern for the 196061 academic year
along with four other students. mjh to Dean Moody Prior, Graduate School,
March 14, 1960, Box 88, mjh-nu. Cole later served as president of Spelman
College, Atlanta.
107. Ottenberg, Thirty Years of Fieldnotes, 13940. See also correspondence
between Simon Ottenberg, Phoebe Ottenberg (Simons wife and also a grad-
uate student in anthropology at Northwestern), and Herskovits, Box 57
(195051), mjh-nu.
108. Greenberg, On Being a Linguistic Anthropologist.
109. Hyatt, Franz Boas, 137.
110. Ottenberg, Thirty Years of Fieldnotes, 151.
112. Edwin Embree, President, Julius Rosenwald Fund, to mjh, May 8, 1935,
mjh to Embree, November 11, 1935, mjh to Embree, May 27, 1936, Box 20,
mjh-nu.
113. Frank L. Hayes, Haitian Voodoo Dance Thrills Savants of Chicago Schools,
Chicago Daily News, June 5, 1936, mjh-nu.
114. Henry, Ralph Bunche, 7677.
115. Huggins, Ralph Bunche, 7273, 7881.
116. mjh to Franklyn Snyder, February 10, 1947, Box 40, mjh-nu.
117. mjh to Rayford Logan, October 27, 1954, Logan to mjh, December 15,
1954, mjh to Logan, December 23, 1954, Box 67, mjh-nu.
118. Herskovits and Herskovits, Rebel Destiny, vii.
120. Herskovits, Social History of the Negro, 25859, 22730.
122. Meier and Rudwick, Black History, 1078; Wish quoted on 108. Wish ex-
pressed his debt to Herskovits in Wish, Slave Disloyalty, 435n. See also
Wish, American Slave Insurrections.
123. Meier and Rudwick, Black History, 108; Bauer and Bauer, Day to Day Re-
sistance; mjh to Swados, September 15, 1942, Box 23, mjh-nu. A number
of Herskovitss students published articles in the 1941 Journal of Negro His-
tory. Meier and Rudwick, Black History, 114. See Journal of Negro History 26
(October 1941): 415.
124. mjh to Swados, September 15, 1942, Box 23, mjh-nu.
125. Herskovits, Guggenheim Fellowship, Report on Herbert Aptheker, Nov.
275
20, 1944, Box 32, mjh-nu; Aptheker to mjh, October 29, 1945, Box 32,
mjh-nu; Aptheker to author, December 17, 1998, letter in the authors pos-
session.
126. Meier and Rudwick, Black History, 1078.
of the Committee on Problems and Policies of the ssrc, May 19, 1929. The
other members were M. S. Viteles and T. J. Woofter Jr. This subcommittee of
the Committee on Interracial Relations was dissolved in September 1930.
Edwin B. Wilson, President, ssrc, to mjh, September 30, 1930, Box 22,
mjh-nu.
129. Henry, Ralph Bunche, 7576.
130. Henry, Ralph Bunche, 77. Another time, Bunche commented that once when
he had lunch at the faculty club with some colleagues, Herskovits came to
their table, red and shame-faced after his meal was nished; Herskovits had
never invited Bunche to dine with him at the faculty club. Henry, Ralph
Bunche, 77.
131. Janken, Rayford W. Logan, x.
132. Staneld, Philanthropy and Jim Crow, 6.
136. Woodson quoted in Meier and Rudwick, Black History, 289.
137. Woodson removed Jones from the asnlh executive council. Goggin, Carter
G. Woodson, 5963, 8183; Lagemann, Politics of Knowledge, 12526. See also
Du Boiss critique of Joness 1917 report on Negro education. Du Bois,
Negro Education, 878.
138. Goggin, Carter G. Woodson, 94, 17478.
139. mjh to Wingate Todd, November 10, 1926, Box 24, mjh-nu.
140. mjh to Boas, October 5, 1929, Box 3, mjh-nu.
141. Woodson to mjh, October 10, 1929, Box 11, mjh-nu.
142. According to Meier and Rudwick, Rayford Logan researched and wrote
most of African Background Outlined. Meier and Rudwick, Black History, 91;
Woodson, African Background Outlined.
143. Woodson, African Background Outlined; Goggin, Carter G. Woodson, 128.
144. Woodson, African Background Outlined.
145. mjh to Young, September 26, 1936, Box 22, mjh-nu.
146. Herskovits, review of African Background Outlined.
149. Woodson, African Background Outlined, 152.
276
150. Herskovitss friend Donald Young, of the Annals of the American Academy of
Political and Social Science, turned down Woodsons review due to excessive
length. Young to mjh, May 5, 1937, Box 22, mjh-nu.
151. Woodson, Dr. Melville J. Herskovits Method Examined; Young to mjh,
May 5, 1937, Box 22, mjh-nu.
152. Woodson, Dr. Melville J. Herskovits Method Examined.
153. Woodson, Dr. Melville J. Herskovits Method Examined.
154. mjh to Woodson, July 20, 1943, Box 28, mjh-nu.
155. Du Bois to mjh, October 12, 1960, Box 88, mjh-nu; Lewis, W. E. B. Du Bois:
Biography of a Race, 37980.
156. Anson Phelps Stokes to 22 invitees (Dear Sir), October 19, 1931, Series 1.3,
Box 418, geb Papers; Meier and Rudwick, Black History, 17; Sitko, New
Deal for Blacks, 23; Tindall, Emergence of the New South, 17783.
157. Minutes of the Conference on the Advisability of Publishing an Encyclope-
dia of the Negro, Washington dc, November 7, 1931, Reel 35, Du Bois
Papers; Charles S. Johnson to Franklin Frazier, July 20, 1932, Box 131, Folder
14, E. Franklin Frazier Papers, Moorland-Spingarn Research Center, How-
ard University.
158. Anson Phelps Stokes to 22 invitees (Dear Sir), October 19, 1931, Stokes to
Jackson Davis, geb, March 31, 1932, Series 1.3, Box 418, geb Papers.
159. Goggin, Carter G. Woodson, 5963, 8183; Lagemann, Politics of Knowledge,
12526.
160. Minutes of the Conference on the Advisability of Publishing an Encyclope-
dia of the Negro.
161. Woodson to Brawley, November 28, 1931, Box 139, ccg Files; Woodson to
Du Bois, January 7, 1932, Woodson to Du Bois, February 11, 1932, Reel 37,
Du Bois Papers; Meier and Rudwick, Black History, 5758; Woodson, Du-
plication of Eort.
162. Du Bois to James H. Dillard, November 30, 1931, Dillard to Du Bois, De-
cember 2, 1931, in Aptheker, Correspondence of W. E. B. Du Bois, 44748; Du
Bois to Stokes, December 9, 1931, Memorandum to the Conference on the
Advisability of Publishing a Negro Encyclopedia, December 9, 1931, Du
Bois to Stokes, December 17, 1931, Reel 35, Du Bois Papers; Minutes, En-
cyclopedia of the Negro, March 12, 1932, Board of Directors meeting, Reel
37, Du Bois Papers; Stokes to mjh, February 2, 1940, Box 7, mjh-nu; Meier
and Rudwick, Black History, 5758. The nal quotation is from a letter from
Stokes to Jackson Davis, geb, April 21, 1932, Series 1.3, Box 418, geb Papers.
163. The members of the Advisory Council of the Encyclopedia were the South
African Association for the Advancement of Science, International Institute
of African Languages and Cultures, American Council on Education, Na-
tional Research Council, American Council of Learned Societies, Hampton
277
Institute, Tuskegee Institute, Atlanta University (Rayford Logan), Howard
University, Fisk University, and the Commission on Interracial Cooperation.
Memorandum on the Encyclopedia of the Negro, Reprint of March 1936,
with footnotes, appendices and Report of Progress to Date, Box 7, mjh-nu.
164. Leland to mjh, March 29, 1934, Box 2, mjh-nu.
165. mjh to Leland, April 2, 1934, Box 2, mjh-nu.
166. Leland to mjh, April 4, 1934, Box 2, mjh-nu.
167. mjh to Du Bois, October 11, 1935, Box 7, mjh-nu; Du Bois to David H.
Stevens, geb, December 2, 1937, Series 1.3, Box 418, geb Papers. In 1935
Herskovits advised Du Bois that the section on Africa should emphasize West
Africa, adding that he would be happy to prepare articles on a number of
subjects, including race and race crossing, West Africa, and the Bush Negroes
of Suriname.
168. Du Bois wrote to numerous experts and leading scholars and journalists
asking for their opinion of the encyclopedia project. Although many re-
sponded in the positive, few proposed black control of the project. One of the
few who did was H. L. Mencken, outspoken editor of the popular magazine
American Mercury. Mencken supported the encyclopedias being published
as soon as possible. Moreover he suggest[ed] that if possible it ought to
be done principally by Negroesindeed, it would be best if it could be done
wholly by Negroes. H. L. Mencken to Du Bois, October 11, 1935, abstract,
Series 1.3, Box 418, geb Papers.
169. mjh to Parsons, June 8, 1936, Box 18, mjh-nu.
170. mjh to Young, July 8, 1936, Box 22, mjh-nu.
171. mjh to Young, April 3, 1936, Young to mjh, April 7, 1936, mjh to Young,
April 15, 1936, Box 22, mjh-nu.
172. mjh to Young, June 8, 1936, Box 22, mjh-nu.
173. mjh to Parsons, June 8, 1936, Box 18, mjh-nu.
174. Parsons to mjh, June 11, 1936, Box 18, mjh-nu.
175. mjh to Parsons, August 23, 1936, Box 18, mjh-nu.
176. Minutes, Encyclopedia of the Negro, March 12, 1932. Du Bois was a mem-
ber of the board and of the Executive Committee. The other Executive Com-
mittee members were Stokes, chair; Robert Moton and James Dillard, rst
and second vice chairs; Benjamin Brawley, secretary; Mordecai Johnson; and
C. T. Loram. Stokes to Du Bois, March 29, 1932, Stokes to Park, March 31,
1932, The Negro Encyclopedia, n.d., 1932, Reel 37, Du Bois Papers.
177. Frazier to Du Bois, October 26, 1935, Reel 44, Du Bois Papers; Janken,
Rayford W. Logan, 9394; Frazier to Du Bois, November 7, 1936, in Apthe-
ker, Correspondence . . . Volume II, 7172; Lewis, W. E. B. Du Bois: The Fight for
Equality, 437.
178. Young, Black Writers, x, 35, 1517, 20, 2425, 4161.
278
179. British Broadcasting Corporation, London, England, America To-Day.
180. Minutes, Encyclopedia of the Negro, March 12, 1932.
181. Stokes to Board members, August 2, 1938, Box 7, mjh-nu.
182. mjh to Stokes, September 22, 1938, Box 7, mjh-nu.
183. In April 1934 Stokes submitted requests for $100,000 from the geb and
$100,000 from the Carnegie Corp. based on a total budget of $225,000 for
four years. Stokes to Trevor Arnett, President, geb, April 16, 1934, Series 1.3,
Box 418, geb Papers.
184. Davis to Stokes, April 19, 1932, Davis to Trevor Arnett, geb, April 9, 1932,
Davis to Stokes, April 3, 1937, Excerpt from dhsDiary, Atlanta Univer-
sity, April 28, 1934, Jackson Davis and David H. Stevens, geb, Memoran-
dum on The Encyclopedia of the Negro, April 28, 1934, Series 1.3, Box 418,
geb Papers.
185. Keppel to R. M. Lester, internal memo, n.d., May 1934?, Box 139, ccg Files.
186. Alvin Johnson to Keppel, April 28, 1934, Box 139, ccg Files.
187. Report of Progress, Encyclopedia of the Negro, March 20, 1936, Box 7,
mjh-nu.
188. Du Bois to mjh, February 27, 1939, Box 7, mjh-nu.
189. Herskovits to Du Bois, March 3, 1939, Box 7, mjh-nu.
190. Herskovits to Du Bois, draft of letter, n.d., 1940?, Box 7, mjh-nu.
191. Encyclopedia of the Negro: Minutes of the Meeting of the Executive Com-
mittee, December 9, 1939, Logan Papers, Moorland-Spingarn Research
Center, Howard University.
192. Encyclopedia of the Negro: Minutes.
193. Encyclopedia of the Negro: Minutes.
194. Stokes to mjh, February 2, 1940, mjh to Stokes, February 20, 1940, Box 7,
mjh-nu.
195. Stokes to mjh, March 6, 1940, Box 7, mjh-nu.
196. Madison Bentley to mjh, February 5, 1940, mjh to Bentley, Library of Con-
gress, February 8, 1940, Box 7, mjh-nu.
197. Interview, Stokes and Davis, geb, March 31, 1941, Stokes to Davis, April 22,
1941, Davis to W. W. Alexander, April 25, 1941, Davis to Stokes, May 20,
1941, Series 1.3, Box 418, geb Papers; Dollard and Stokes, interview, April 1,
1941, Box 139, ccg Files.
198. Davis and Dollard, interview, April 24, 1941, Series 1.3, Box 418, Folder
4387, geb Papers.
199. Rayford Logan Diary, 195051, February 14, 1951, entry, Box 5, Rayford W.
Logan Papers, Library of Congress, Manuscript Division, Washington dc.
200. Janken, Rayford W. Logan, 9395.
201. Lewis, W. E. B. Du Bois: The Fight for Equality, 447.
202. Herskovits to Donald Young, ssrc, January 2, 1936, probably 1937, Box 22,
279
mjh-nu; Dollard to Keppel, memo, July 23, 1942, with quote from October
24, 1935, minutes of Board of Trustees meeting, Negro Study General Corre-
spondence, Reel 91, Carnegie Corp. of ny Papers, Columbia University Rare
Book and Manuscript Library; Jackson, Gunnar Myrdal, 1622.
203. mjh to Pvt. Edmond Sager, Fort Benning ga, February 22, 1944, Box 30,
mjh-nu.
204. mjh to Waldo Leland, acls, Box 2, January 10, 1939; Herskovits, Memo-
randum on the Desirability of Holding a Conference on Negro Studies,
January 20, 1939, Box 2, mjh-nu; mjh to Graves, December 1, 1939, Mor-
timer Graves, acls, to mjh, November 7, 1939, Leland to mjh, May 28,
1941, Box 2, mjh-nu. The original idea for this conference was suggested by
Leland to Herskovits in December 1938.
205. mjh to Waldo Leland, acls, Box 2, January 10, 1939; Herskovits, Memo-
randum on the Desirability of Holding a Conference on Negro Studies.
206. mjh to Dr. Mortimer Graves, acls, May 17, 1939, mjh to Waldo Leland,
acls, January 10, 1939, mjh to Graves, December 1, 1939, mjh to Graves,
207. mjh to Graves, January 9, 1940, Box 2, mjh-nu.
208. mjh to Bunche, January 9, 1940, mjh to Graves, March 5, 1940, Bunche to
mjh, March 16, 1940, Box 2, mjh-nu.
209. Woodson to mjh, February 20, 1940, Box 2, mjh-nu.
211. Myrdal to Bunche, January 18, 1940, Bunche Papers, Schomburg Center.
212. Myrdal to Bunche, January 18, 1940.
of Learned Societies, 11, 22627. The Encyclopedia of the Negro project
was not discussed either.
214. mjh to Bunche, January 9, 1940, mjh to Graves, March 5, 1940, Bunche to
mjh, March 16, 1940, Leland to mjh, January 12, 1939, Daugherty to mjh,
May 20, 1941, mjh to Leland, May 26, 1941, mjh to Leland, April 1, 1940,
Leland to mjh, February 3, 1941, Box 2, mjh-nu; Proceedings: Conference
on Negro Studies Called by the American Council of Learned Societies, 192.
215. American Council of Learned Societies, Committee on Negro Studies, Min-
utes of meeting of November 10 and 11, 1944, Donald Goodchild, Box 32,
mjh-nu. Reddicks 1939 dissertation was entitled The Negro in the New
Orleans Press, 18501860. Meier and Rudwick, Black History, 103.
216. Goodchild, Committee on Negro Studies; Olson to mjh, April 18, 1945,
Box 32, mjh-nu.
217. W. W. Brierly, geb, to Waldo G. Leland, Director, acls, October 24, 1945,
Series 1.2, Box 256, Folder 2652, geb Papers; Daugherty, Reports of Com-
mittees and Projects, 1948 Report.
280
218. Reports of Committees and Projects . . . 1947 Report.
220. Daugherty to members of Committee, August 31, 1948, sent October 2,
1948, Box 43, mjh-nu; D. H. Daugherty, Reports: Committee on Negro
Studies, 1949 Report. The microlming project continued into 1951, even
after the dissolution of the committee. Daugherty to mjh, February 7, 1951,
Box 51, mjh-nu.
221. James F. King to mjh, May 19, 1945, Box 32, mjh-nu; D. H. Daugherty,
American Council of Learned Societies, Committee on Negro Studies, Min-
utes of Meeting of 7 February 1946, Box 32, mjh-nu.
222. mjh to Williams, September 10, 1943, mjh to Goodchild, November 17,
1943, Goodchild to Williams, September 17, 1943, Goodchild to Couch,
September 17, 1943, Box 27, mjh-nu. Meier and Rudwick, Black History,
104.
223. mjh to Daugherty, September 9, 1946, Box 37, mjh-nu; Reports of Com-
mittees and Projects . . . 1947 Report.
224. Daugherty, Reports of Committees and Projects, 1949 Report.
225. Daugherty, Reports of Committees and Projects, 1948 Report.
226. Daugherty, Reports of Committees and Projects, 1948 Report; Pro-
ceedings: Conference on Negro Studies Called by the American Council of
Learned Societies, 199200.
of Learned Societies, 199200.
228. Aptheker to Gershenhorn, December 17, 1998, letter in the authors
possession.
229. Summary of the Findings and Recommendations of the Conference on
Negro Studies, March 2930, 1940, sent by Daugherty to committee mem-
bers, June 3, 1941, Box 2, mjh-nu.
230. Reddick, Library Facilities, 128.
utes of meeting of November 10 and 11, 1944.
232. mjh to Leland, February 6, 1941, mjh to Leland, March 3, 1941, Mortimer
Graves, Administrative Secretary, acls, to mjh, April 25, 1941, Box 2, mjh-
nu.
233. mjh to D. H. Daugherty, acls, April 7, 1941, Box 2, mjh-nu.
235. mjh to Daugherty, acls, May 12, 1941, Box 2, mjh-nu. He advised calling
Sterling Brown to make lunch arrangements. Noting further than this, I
dont think we have to concern ourselves, Herskovits avoided the question
of segregated accommodations.
236. mjh to Dougherty, May 31, 1941, Box 2, mjh-nu.
281
237. Logan to Wallace K. Harrison, Director of Cultural Relations Division,
ociaa, October 20, 1941, Record Group 229, Box 411, Inter-American Con-
ference on Negro Studies Folder, National Archives, Washington dc (here-
after cited as rg 229/411, National Archives); Janken, Rayford W. Logan,
13437. For a discussion of Logans generally disappointing experience with
the ociaa, see Janken, Rayford W. Logan, 13639.
239. D. H. Daugherty to John M. Clark, Oce of the Coordinator of Inter-
American Aairs, January 13, 1942, rg 229/411, National Archives. Charles
Thompson, Chairman, Joint Committee on Cultural Relations to Mrs. Nina
P. Collier, Acting Secretary, Joint Committee on Cultural Relations, October
31, 1941; Daugherty, Committee on Negro Studies; mjh to Henry Field,
240. Logan Diary, 1941, December 22, 1941, entry, Rayford Logan Papers, Box 3,
Library of Congress, Manuscript Division, Washington dc.
241. D. H. Daugherty to John M. Clark, January 13, 1942, rg 229/411, National
Archives.
242. Logan Diary, 1942, January 13, 1942, entry, Rayford Logan Papers, Box 3,
Library of Congress, Manuscript Division, Washington dc; Daugherty to
Levy, December 4, 1941, Levy to Daugherty, December 8, 1941, Daugherty
to Levy, January 2, 1942, Rockefeller to Leland, January 8, 1942, rg 229/411,
National Archives.
243. Logan to Clark, February 2, 1942, rg 229/411, National Archives.
244. Leland to Clark, February 13, 1942, rg 229/411, National Archives; Hand-
written Notes: Conference on Negro Studies: Port-au-Prince, Selection of
Members of Conference, n.d., Nelson Rockefeller to Leland, March 6, 1942,
rg 229/411, National Archives; Janken, Rayford W. Logan, 143. Subse-
quently, the acls decided to cancel the Haiti conference because many of the
delegates could not attend for various reasons, including illness, government
service, and transportation problems related to the Second World War. The
ociaa then canceled the funding contract, and the conference was never held.
Leland to John M. Clark, March 21, 1942, rg 229/411, National Archives;
Daugherty, Committee on Negro Studies.
245. Hugh H. Smythe to Rayford Logan, May 24, 1943, Rayford Logan to
Hugh H. Smythe, June 2, 1943, Box 166, Rayford Logan Papers, Moorland-
Spingarn Research Center, Howard University.
246. Herskovits to Leland, June 24, 1944, Box 27, mjh-nu; Janken, Rayford W.
Logan, 80; Meier and Rudwick, Black History, 106.
247. Goodchild to mjh, September 18, 1944, mjh to Goodchild, September 22,
1944, Box 32, mjh-nu. acls ocial D. H. Daugherty suggested Paul Robe-
son as a possible replacement. However, another acls ocial, Donald Good-
282
child, told Herskovits that although he did not disapprove of radicals, he
opposed the idea on the ground that I dont believe you can fool around with
American Communists very much and still maintain a claim to intellectual
integrity.
248. Meier and Rudwick, Black History, 75, 78, 80; Hine, State of Afro-American
History, 286.
249. A few months after Herskovitss assertion of ignorance of other prominent
black historians, when Herskovits began to create a list of scholars working in
the eld of Negro studies he sent questionnaires to a number of black his-
torians, including Franklin, Greene, Logan, Eric Williams, and Benjamin
Quarles, demonstrating his familiarity with them. mjh, form letter to schol-
ars, acls, cons, n.d., 1945, Box 32, mjh-nu; Names of those who answered
questionnaire of Committee on Negro Studies, of the American Council of
Learned Societies, n.d., 1945, Box 32, mjh-nu.
250. acls-cons questionnaire form completed by Donald Goodchild, Data for
Personnel List of those conducting studies of the Negro, n.d., 1945, Box 32,
mjh-nu.
251. Goodchild to mjh, January 22, 1946, Box 32, mjh-nu.
252. Daugherty, American Council of Learned Societies, Committee on Negro
Studies, Minutes of Meeting of 7 February 1946.
utes of meeting of November 10 and 11, 1944.
Studies, Minutes of Meeting of 7 February 1946.
255. mjh to Daugherty, February 24, 1947, mjh to Daugherty, March 18, 1947,
Box 37, mjh-nu.
256. mjh to Daugherty, March 18, 1947, Daugherty to mjh, April 4, 1947, Box 37,
mjh-nu.
257. Daugherty to mjh, June 10, 1947, Box 37, mjh-nu.
258. Daugherty to mjh, July 8, 1948, Box 37, mjh-nu.
259. Daugherty to mjh, May 12, 1949, mjh to Daugherty, May 17, 1949, Daugh-
erty to mjh, May 24, 1949, Box 43, mjh-nu.
260. Charles E. Odegaard, Executive Director, acls, to Pride, July 14, 1949, Box
43, mjh-nu. The black majority contradicts Robert L. Harris Jr.s statement
that the committees black membership was always outnumbered. Harris,
Segregation and Scholarship, 325.
261. mjh to Daugherty, July 12, 1948, Box 37, mjh-nu; mjh to Daugherty, Sep-
tember 30, 1948, Box 43, mjh-nu.
Studies, Minutes of Meeting of 7 February 1946; D. H. Daugherty, Ameri-
can Council of Learned Societies, Committee on Negro Studies, Minutes of
283
Meeting of 15 October 1946, Box 37, mjh-nu; Daugherty to mjh, January 6,
1950, Box 47, mjh-nu.
263. Daugherty to mjh, September 27, 1948, Box 43, mjh-nu.
264. mjh to Daugherty, January 23, 1950, mjh to Daugherty, March 22, 1950, Box
47, mjh-nu.
265. Daugherty to mjh, March 29, 1950, Box 47, mjh-nu; Daugherty to mjh,
February 7, 1951, Box 51, mjh-nu.
266. mjh to Daugherty, February 15, 1951, Box 51, mjh-nu.
267. Daugherty to mjh, February 7, 1951, Box 51, mjh-nu.
268. Harris, Segregation and Scholarship, 329.
269. Charles E. Odegaard to mjh, August 11, 1950, Box 47, mjh-nu.
6. The Postwar Expansion of African Studies
1. Conroy, Meet Melville Herskovits.
5. Conroy, Meet Melville Herskovits.
6. McCaughey, International Studies, 1029.
7. Berman, Inuence of the Carnegie, Ford, and Rockefeller Foundations, 101.
8. Mahoney, JFK, 3435; Staniland, American Intellectuals, 30.
9. Chamberlain and Hoebel, Anthropology Oerings.
10. Voegelin, Anthropology in American Universities, 357, 365, 387; Moore,
Anthropology and Africa, 13.
11. Pels, Rockefeller Philanthropy, 14.
12. Aptheker, introduction to The Negro, 1015; Vansina, Living with Africa, 43.
13. Du Bois quoted in Hyatt, Franz Boas,99.
14. Du Bois, The Negro.
15. Goggin, Carter G. Woodson; Woodson, African Background Outlined.
16. Harris, Africa and Africans, ixx.
17. Alford, Prophet without Honor, 89. In 1943 Hansberry asserted that
Howards African Studies program represents the most original, distinctive
and potentially signicant endeavor in the eld of Education which Howard
University has yet undertaken in the course of its long and distinguished
history, and our African History courses are in content and objectives the
only undergraduate courses of the kind that are now being oered anywhere
in the world. Edwin W. Smith, The Proposed African Studies At Fisk,
284
Memorandum No. 2, March 20, 1943, Davis to Smith, March 25, 1943,
Series 1.3, Box 421, Folder 4412, geb Papers.
18. Bates, Eastern Libyans; McCall, American Anthropology, 23. Because of the
scarcity of American Africanists, most of the authors of Harvards series were
British.
19. Emory Ross, Memorandum on Certain Needed Aids in American-African
Relationships rough draft, November 9, 1948, to mjh, Box 43, mjh-nu.
20. Carter, African Studies, 3.
21. Vansina, Living with Africa, 43.
22. mjh to Mrs. M. L. Rhone, Omaha Social Settlement House, February 19,
1932, Box 20, mjh-nu. In 1930 Herskovits taught a course entitled Negro,
African and American, during the summer session at the University of Wis-
consin. fbi Report on Melville J. Herskovits of sa, June 30, 1961, File No. mi
16177, Milwaukee Oce, Received after foia request.
23. Stocking, Selected Papers, 1112; Murray, Non-Eclipse of Americanist An-
thropology, 52, 55, 5861; Darnell, And Along Came Boas, 28081. From
1927, when Herskovits arrived, through the Second World War, Northwest-
ern issued ve anthropology doctorates.
26. Program: Forty-fth Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological As-
sociation, December 2731, 1946, Box 41, mjh-nu.
27. Staniland, American Intellectuals, 24.
29. mjh to Simeon E. Leland, March 7, 1949, Box 45, mjh-nu.
31. Address by Dr. C. T. Loram of the Native Aairs Commission, Union of
South Africa, on the Occasion of a Dinner Given in His Honour by the
Phelps-Stokes Fund of 101 Park Avenue, New York, Box 11, Folder 155, ieb
Papers.
32. Herskovits, Missionary Zeal in Africa, review of In Sunny Nigeria: Experi-
ences Among a Primitive People in the Interior of North Central Africa, by Albert
D. Helser, New York Herald Tribune Books, September 5, 1926, 12, Box 36,
mjh-sc.
33. Herskovits, Culture Areas of Africa; Moore, Anthropology and Africa, 812;
Ruth E. Mugnaini, Los Angeles State College, to mjh, March 13, 1961, mjh
34. Herskovits, Dahomey, 25; Staniland, American Intellectuals, 2425; McKinley,
Lure of Africa, 15051.
35. Bennett, preface to Area Studies, iii.
36. Beals, Politics of Social Research, 55.
285
38. Stocking, Ideas and Institutions, 3536; Patterson, Social History of Anthro-
pology, 9395; Kluckhohn, Mirror for Man, 168, 17277; Carey, Ruth Bene-
dict, 30226; Lyons, Uneasy Partnership, 11819. Benedicts study of the Japa-
nese national character was published in 1946 as The Chrysanthemum and the
Sword.
39. Simpson, introduction to Universities and Empire, xxixxi.
40. Herskovits Returns from Brazil to Teach Anthropology at nu. Daily North-
western, January 28, 1943, Melville J. Herskovits File, College of Arts and
Sciences Faculty Reprints, Biographical Files, nu Archives.
41. Lyons, Uneasy Partnership, 11213; mjh to Max Lowenthal, Chief, Reoccu-
pation Division, Oce of Economic Warfare, October 20, 1943, Box 29,
mjh-nu.
42. mjh to Pvt. A. Rockefeller, Ft. Monroe va, student, November 12, 1942, Box
20, mjh-nu; Herskovits Returns from Brazil.
43. Blum, V Was for Victory, 28184.
44. Parma Basham, Ill Never Forget June 25, 1975, Melville J. Herskovits
File, College of Arts and Sciences Faculty Reprints, Biographical Files, nu
Archives.
45. Davis, Livin the Blues, 29093.
46. mjh to Frederick Keppel, January 17, 1937, Box 5, mjh-nu.
47. Morris D. Waldman to mjh, May 10, 1935, mjh to Waldman, May 27, 1935,
Box 2, mjh-nu.
48. mjh to Prof. Salo Baron, Columbia Univ., July 20, 1933, Box 5, mjh-nu.
49. Samuel A. Goldsmith, Executive Director, the Jewish Charities of Chicago,
to mjh, October 12, 1936, mjh to Goldsmith, October 27, 1936, mjh to
Horace Kallen, October 27, 1936, mjh to Hallowell, November 7, 1936, Box
9, mjh-nu; Gutmann to mjh, March 9, 1939, mjh to Gutmann, March 31,
1939, Mortimer Graves to mjh, January 24, 1940, Herskovits to Graves,
50. Quote from Louis Diamond, M.D., to mjh, November 22, 1938, Box 14,
mjh-nu; mjh to Diamond, November 25, 1938, Box 14, mjh-nu.
52. Bennett, preface to Area Studies, iii.
53. Lagemann, Politics of Knowledge, 174; Minutes, Ethnogeographic Board,
Fourth Meeting, March 25, 1944, enclosed with William N. Fenton, Re-
search Associate, Ethnogeographic Board, to mjh, April 8, 1944, Box 27,
mjh-nu.
54. World Regions in the Social Sciences: Report of a Committee of the ssrc,
June 1943, Box 30, mjh-nu.
55. mjh to Robert Crane, ssrc, November 15, 1943, Box 30, mjh-nu.
56. mjh to Harris, June 8, 1947, Box 38, mjh-nu; Robert Redeld, Area Pro-
286
grams in Education and Research, April 2930, 1944, ssrc Conference, Box
30, mjh-nu.
57. Report of the Committee on African Anthropology, n.d., March 1943, Box
28, mjh-nu.
58. On Operation Torch, see Ambrose, Rise to Globalism, 2026.
59. Bennett, preface to Area Studies, iii; Memorandum on a Joint Committee on
Negro and African Studies, ca. January 1, 1944, Box 27, mjh-nu; mjh to
Donald Young, April 28, 1944, Box 30, mjh-nu.
60. Report of the Committee on African Anthropology.
61. mjh to David Stevens, November 25, 1942, Box 20, mjh-nu.
64. A detailed statement covering the technical aspects of the program was
prepared by Fisk anthropologist Mark H. Watkins. Johnson to Davis, Octo-
ber 16, 1942, Series 1.3, Box 421, Folder 4412, geb Papers.
66. Turner was also chair of the English department. Wade-Lewis, Impact of the
Turner/Herskovits Connection, 392.
67. Pels, Rockefeller Philanthropy, 15; Johnson to Davis, October 16, 1942,
68. David H. Stevens and mjh, interview, January 26, 1943, Series 1.3, Box 421,
geb Papers; mjh to Stevens, November 25, 1942, Box 20, mjh-nu.
69. David H. Stevens, geb, and Frances Herskovits, interview, November 21,
1942, Series 1.3, Box 421, Folder 4412, geb Papers.
70. In 1947 Herskovits gave Watkins an unqualied recommendation for ap-
pointment to the sociology and anthropology department at Brooklyn Col-
lege. W. C. Waterman, chair, to mjh, July 1, 1947, mjh to Waterman, July 16,
1947, Box 42, mjh-nu. In 1940 Herskovits gave Turner a strong recommen-
dation on a funding request to the acls for a eldtrip to Brazil. Herskovits
noted that although Turner was studying Portuguese, uency was not essen-
tial as he was working on phonetics and grammar. It would only be necessary
if he were studying something like social relationships. mjh to Waldo Leland,
acls, March 12, 1940, mjh to Donald Goodchild, acls, Box 25, mjh-nu.
71. David H. Stevens and mjh, interview, January 26, 1943, Series 1.3, Box 421,
geb Papers; mjh to Stevens, November 25, 1942, Box 20, mjh-nu; Watkins,
Grammar of Chichewa. Chichewa, also known as Chinyanja, is spoken in
Malawi, Mozambique, and Zambia.
72. David H. Stevens and mjh, interview, January 26, 1943; mjh to Stevens,
November 25, 1942.
73. mjh to Stevens, November 25, 1942; David H. Stevens and mjh, interview,
January 26, 1943.
74. A. R. Mann, geb, to Jackson Davis, geb, memo, December 11, 1942, Series
287
1.3, Box 421, Folder 4412, geb Papers; Interoce Correspondence from
David Stevens, geb, February 3, 1943, Series 1.3, Box 421, geb Papers.
75. Jackson Davis and Charles S. Johnson, interview, January 26, 1943, David H.
Stevens and mjh, interview, January 26, 1943, Series 1.3, Box 421, geb
Papers.
76. Pels, Rockefeller Philanthropy, 15; Johnson to Davis, October 16, 1942,
Series 1.3, Box 421, Folder 4412, geb Papers; Thomas E. Jones to Jackson
Davis, geb, February 8, 1943, Thomas E. Jones to Davis, March 2, 1943,
Series 1.3, Box 421, geb Papers; Jackson Davis, geb, to Charles S. Johnson,
April 9, 1943, Series 1.3, Box 421, Folder 4412, geb Papers.
77. Jackson Davis and mjh, interview, January 10, 1947, Series 1.4, Box 640,
Folder 6702, geb Papers.
78. Thomas E. Jones to mjh, October 10, 1944, mjh to Jones, October 14, 1944,
mjh to Charles S. Johnson, October 18, 1944, Box 33, mjh-nu.
79. The ve professors were Mark H. Watkins, anthropology and sociology;
Robert E. Park, lecturer on race and culture; Lorenzo Turner; Edwin W.
Smith; and Ina C. Brown, lecturer in social anthropology. Thomas E. Jones
to Arthur Askey, geb, April 9, 1945; Fisk University Program of African
Studies, pamphlet, n.d., Series 1.3, Box 421, geb Papers.
80. Jackson Davis and mjh, interview, January 10, 1947, Series 1.4, Box 640,
82. McCall, American Anthropology, 30.
utes of Meeting of November 10 and 11, 1944. The Ethnogeographic Board
was disbanded after the war. To continue the focus on area studies, the three
research councils formed a joint Exploratory Committee on World Area
Research. Bennett, preface to Area Studies, iii.
85. Report of the Committee on African Anthropology.
86. Agenda: Meeting of Informal Conference to Consider Establishing an Afri-
can Institute, etc., March 15, 1943; Minutes: Meeting of Organizing Com-
mittee, International Conference on Africa, March 27, 1943; Statement
Concerning Agenda for a Conference on Africa, April 19, 1943, Du Bois
Papers; mjh to Members of the Africa Conference Committee, April 16,
1945, Du Bois Papers. A few days later Herskovits expressed his regrets to
Woodson that you did not feel it possible to meet with the group that was
considering setting up an international conference on Africa. Actually, it was
I who made the point that no such meeting would be held if you were not
included in the list of those invited to attend. . . . You can be quite sure that as
far as I am concerned, it [the conference] is not going to be loaded in any
288
direction, for I regard it as a chance to hear and discuss all points of view
concerning Africa. mjh to Woodson, March 31, 1943, Box 28, mjh-nu.
87. Meeting of Organizing Committee for the International Conference on
Africa, April 23, 1943, Du Bois Papers.
88. mjh to Du Bois, May 10, 1943, mjh to Members of the Organizing Com-
mittee for an International Conference on Africa, May 22, 1943, mjh to Du
Bois, July 30, 1943, mjh to Members of the Organizing Committee for an
International Conference on Africa, September 13, 1943, Du Bois Papers.
89. mjh to Members of the Africa Conference Committee, April 16, 1945, Du
Bois Papers. Although interest in Africa waned toward the end of the war and
during the beginning of the postwar period, there were some indications of
sustained interest in Africa. In July 1944 the State Department created a
separate Africa section for the rst time. mjh to Bascom, July 7, 1944, Box 27,
mjh-nu.
92. McCaughey, International Studies, xi, 13435, 16771.
94. Lagemann, Politics of Knowledge, 17375, 178.
95. Gardner to mjh, December 4, 1946, Box 37, mjh-nu.
96. jgs [John Gardner] Visit to N.U. Record of interview form, December 12,
1946, Box 278, ccg Files. Gardner noted that Herskovits was also involved in
the Latin American studies undergraduate major.
97. McKay to mjh, September 23, 1947, Charles Wagley, ssrc Committee on
World Area Research, to mjh, September 29, 1947, mjh to Wagley, October
3, 1947, Ralph L. Beals, ucla, Department of Anthropology and Sociology,
to mjh, November 19, 1947, Box 41, mjh-nu. Herskovits chaired the session
entitled Interdisciplinary Research in World Areas. Donald McKay, Har-
vard University Soviet expert, was general chair of the conference.
98. Charles Dollard and mjh, interview, January 10, 1947, Box 169, ccg Files;
Jackson Davis and mjh, interview, January 10, 1947, Series 1.4, Box 640,
99. mjh to A. Irving Hallowell, nrc, January 8, 1947, Box 169, ccg Files. At the
time, Hallowell, a specialist in Native American cultures, was teaching at
Northwestern, where he taught from 1944 to 1947. He spent most of his
career at the University of Pennsylvania, from 1927 to 1944 and from 1947 to
1963.
100. Herskovits mentioned a number of North American universities and the
Chicago Museum of Natural History as prominent in African studies. Al-
though mentioning Fisk, he omitted Howard. mjh to Daryll C. Forde, Di-
rector, International African Institute, May 28, 1947, Box 38, mjh-nu.
289
102. mjh to Daryll C. Forde, Director, International African Institute, May 28,
1947, Box 38, mjh-nu; McCaughey, International Studies and Academic En-
terprise, 13132. Herskovitss attendance at the iai conference was funded by
a Rockefeller Foundation grant. mjh and whs [Whitney H. Shepardson],
Carnegie Corp., June 4, 1948, interview, Box 167, ccg Files.
103. Herskovits, Report of the Committee on African Anthropology, February
24, 1948, Box 39, mjh-nu.
104. Daryll Forde to mjh, July 8, 1947, Box 38, mjh-nu.
105. mjh to John Gardner, Carnegie Corp., July 14, 1947, Box 278, ccg Files.
106. John Gardner to mjh, July 16, 1947, Box 278, ccg Files.
107. mjh, John Gardner, Waldo Leland, interview, October 1, 1948, Box 278, ccg
Files.
108. mjh to David Stevens, November 25, 1942, Box 20, mjh-nu.
109. Memorandum on a Joint Committee on Negro and African Studies.
110. Young to mjh, May 11, 1944, mjh to Young, May 31, 1944, Box 30, mjh-nu;
Leland to Herskovits, June 19, 1944, Box 27, mjh-nu.
111. Herskovits, Contribution of Afroamerican Studies, 1.
114. mjh to Franklyn Snyder, Pres. nu, October 27, 1947, Snyder to mjh, No-
vember 25, 1947, Box 40, mjh-nu; John Gardner and mjh, interview at ssrc
Area Studies Conference, November 28, 1947, Box 278, ccg Files. Despite
Snyders approval, Herskovits did face some opposition in the administra-
tion. Simeon Leland, dean of the College of Liberal Arts, supported an Afri-
can program but opposed a large-scale interdepartmental program. mjh,
Gardner, Leland, interview, October 1, 1948, Box 278, ccg Files.
115. mjh to Franklyn Snyder, Pres. nu, October 27, 1947, Box 40, mjh-nu.
117. Gardner to mjh, December 22, 1947, Box 278, ccg Files.
118. mjh to William McPeak, Ford Foundation, May 17, 1950, Wild to McPeak,
May 15, 1950, mjh to Richard T. Sheldon, Behavioral Sciences Division, the
Ford Foundation, May 29, 1956, Box 47, mjh-nu.
119. mjh to John W. Gardner, Carnegie Corp, January 8, 1948, Box 278, ccg Files.
120. mjh to Gardner, October 28, 1948, Carnegie Corp. Grant FormOce of
Secretary to Treasurer, November 2, 1948, Box 278, ccg Files.
121. Carnegie Grant Made for African Research, Northwestern University Alumni
News, January 15, 1949, Box 46, mjh-nu.
123. Carter, African Studies in the United States: 19551975, 2.
125. Moore, Anthropology and Africa, 15. The characterization of Northwestern as
290
the best African studies center was made by Nigerian scholar Kenneth O.
Dike in 1963.
126. mjh to Charles Dollard, January 12, 1949, Box 43, mjh-nu.
128. mjh to John W. Gardner, Carnegie Corp. of ny, May 17, 1949, Box 45, mjh-
nu.
129. Robert M. Lester, Carnegie Corp. to Dr. J. Roscoe Miller, president, North-
western U., November 16, 1950, Box 278, ccg Files; Northwestern Gets
$100,000 Grant from Carnegie Corp. for African Study Center, Northwest-
ern University News Service press release, December 4, 1951, Melville J.
Herskovits File, College of Arts and Sciences Faculty Reprints, Biographical
Files, nu Archives.
130. Payson Wild to John Gardner, vp, Carnegie, August 13, 1951, Box 278, ccg
Files.
131. mjh to Pendleton Herring, ssrc, December 6, 1950, Box 54, mjh-nu.
132. Robert M. Lester, Secretary, Carnegie Corp. to President James R. Miller,
Northwestern, November 23, 1951, Box 278, ccg Files.
133. Northwestern Gets $100,000 Grant from Carnegie Corp.
134. Charles Dollard and Payson Wild, interview, early 1951 or late 1950, Box 278,
ccg Files; John Gardner, Payson Wild, Simon Leland, interview, September
4, 1951, Box 278, ccg Files.
135. Jackson, Gunnar Myrdal, 171; Charles Dollard, record of interview with
Myrdal, March 7, 1939, nsgc, Reel 91; Frederick Keppel, memo, July 15,
1937, nsgc Reel 90.
136. John Gardner, Payson Wild, Simeon Leland, interview, September 4, 1951,
Box 278, ccg Files.
137. John Gardner, Payson Wild, Simeon Leland, interview, September 4, 1951.
138. wm, Carnegie Corp., and mjh, interview, April 21, 1954, Box 278, ccg Files.
139. Memorandum of Action of Committee of Program of African Studies Meet-
ing, December 17, 1952, Box 60, mjh-nu.
140. Social Science Research Council, Survey of Area Centers, May 15, 1951,
Box 54, mjh-nu.
141. Education in Review: Colleges Found Lacking in Courses to Teach Under-
standing of the Worlds Major Areas, New York Times, August 19, 1951, Box
58, mjh-nu.
142. Lasky, Never Complain, 19596; Lagemann, Politics of Knowledge, 178.
145. Sutton and Smock, Ford Foundation and African Studies, 68.
291
150. Noer, Cold War and Black Liberation, 49.
151. Lagemann, Politics of Knowledge, 17879; mjh to H. Rowan Gaither Jr., April
24, 1950, Box 47, mjh-nu.
152. mjh to William McPeak, Ford Foundation, May 17, 1950, Wild to McPeak,
May 15, 1950, Box 47, mjh-nu.
153. Sutton and Smock, Ford Foundation and African Studies, 6870, 72. At the
time of this article, both Sutton and Smock were senior Ford Foundation
ocials.
154. Sutton and Smock, Ford Foundation and African Studies, 68; Dressel,
Development of African Studies, 67.
155. Ford Foundation press release, Ford Foundation Announces Fellowships
for African Study, May 9, 1955, Box 67, mjh-nu. In 1954 the Ford Founda-
tion also gave the International African Institute $50,000 for fellowships,
library support, African Abstracts, and other purposes. Sutton and Smock,
Ford Foundation and African Studies, 68.
156. mjh to Members of the Ford Foundation Conference on Africa, ca. August 1,
1952, Box 55, mjh-nu.
157. mjh to Carl Spaeth, Ford Foundation, September 16, 1952, mjh to Members
of the Ford Foundation Conference on Africa, ca. August 1, 1952, Ford
Foundation Conference on Africa, Evanston il, August 1823, 1952, Find-
ings and Recommendations, enclosed, mjh to Carl Spaeth, Ford Founda-
tion, August 30, 1952, Box 55, mjh-nu.
158. Barnett to Carl Spaeth, Ford Foundation, September 10, 1952, Box 59, mjh-
nu. In November 1950 Horace Mann Bond, president of Lincoln University,
had announced the formation of Americas rst Institute for the Study of
African Aairs. Institute for the Study of African Aairs is Established as
Unit of Lincoln University, New York Times, November 18, 1950, enclosed,
Jack Harris to mjh, November 18, 1950, Box 53, mjh-nu. Vernon McKay of
the Department of State told Herskovits that Lincolns planned program
would be undernanced, that it would be geared toward undergraduates,
and that the faculty has very little special competence on Africa. Vernon
McKay to mjh, November 22, 1950, Box 53, Folder 3, mjh-nu.
159. mjh to Carl Spaeth, Ford Foundation, September 16, 1952, Box 55, mjh-nu.
160. Jack S. Harris to mjh, August 27, 1952, Box 55, mjh-nu.
161. Ford Foundation Conference on Africa.
162. Logan to mjh, August 27, 1952, Logan Papers, Moorland-Spingarn Research
Center, Howard University; mjh to Carl Spaeth, Ford Foundation, August
30, 1952, Box 55, mjh-nu.
163. Ford Foundation Conference on Africa; Drake, Herskovits and African
Diaspora Studies.
164. Sutton and Smock, Ford Foundation and African Studies, 70.
292
165. mjh to Cleon Swayzee, Director of Research, Ford Foundation, May 20,
1954, Box 62, mjh-nu; Payson Wild, Northwestern University, to Cleon O.
Swayzee, June 3, 1954, Reel Number 0292, Grant Number 5518, Ford
Foundation Archives, New York.
166. Dressel, Development of African Studies, 67; Sutton and Smock, Ford
Foundation and African Studies, 70; $235,000 Grant for African Study
Program, N.U. Alumni News, January 1955, N.U. Gets Grant For Africa
Study, Chicago Daily News, January 13, 1955, Box 69, mjh-nu.
167. Logan, Howard University, 436.
170. Staniland, American Intellectuals, 29. The Ford Foundation gave a total of
$270 million to thirty-four universities from 1953 to 1966 to fund area and
language studies. Cumings, Boundary Displacement, 163.
171. Ford Foundation press release, Ford Foundation Announces Fellowships
for African Study. The three were Warren dAzevedo, anthropology; Da-
vid K. Marvin, political science; and Arthur Tuden, anthropology. DAzevedo
planned a study of the Gola people in western Liberia, and Tuden would
study the Ba-Ila people of Northern Rhodesia. Both planned eighteen-month
studies.
172. Staniland, American Intellectuals, 29. Although Ford gave the lions share of
the funding, Northwesterns Program of African Studies enjoyed additional
support from the Carnegie Corporation (with a ve-year grant through
1956), Fulbright Fellowships, the ssrc, the Belgian-American Educational
Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the Wenner-Gren Foundation.
The Northwestern University Program of African Studies, n.d., 1957?,
mjh-sc.
174. Minutes of the Conference of African Area Study Programs . . . March 11
and 12, 1955, Box 68, mjh-nu.
175. Minutes of the Conference of African Area Study Programs . . . March 11
and 12, 1955.
177. Melville Herskovits Heads Association of African Studies, Evanston Review,
April 25, 1957, Melville J. Herskovits File, College of Arts and Sciences
Faculty Reprints, Biographical Files, nu Archives; John A. Noon, U.S. Infor-
mation Agency, News Release, Northwestern University Anthropologist
Heads New African Association, n.d., Reel Number 0349, Grant Number
580396, Grant Files, Ford Foundation Archives; Pels, Rockefeller Philan-
thropy, 15; Genesis of the Association.
178. Request for Grant Action, March 11, 1958, Central Files c-300, Reel Num-
293
ber 0292, Grant Number 580396, Grant Files, Ford Foundation Archives;
Drake to mjh, October 23, 1958, mjh-nu.
179. Bernice Stevens Decker, American Colleges Widen African Study, Christian
Science Monitor, 1958?, Box 85, mjh-nu.
181. Skinner, African Studies, 59.
182. Skinner, African Studies, 59.
183. Herskovits, Some Thoughts, 56.
184. Skinner, African Studies, 59. Herskovits did not, however, covertly seek
alliances with the cia as William G. Martin and Michael O. West have re-
cently charged. Herskovits did write Allen Dulles, cia director, in 1958 after
he had heard that Dulles had testied before the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee in support of training of more students in the United States in
exotic languages. Herskovits and the Board of Directors of the asa saw
Dulless statement as an opportunity to increase government funding for
research and teaching as concerns Africa. Martin and West, in quoting from
this letter, omitted a key section. The sentence, in full, reads, The Associa-
tion, through its Committee on Research, would be happy to aid you in any
way it can, particularly by advising as to any program that might be set up in
accordance with the ideas you expressed, that is, referring to language train-
ing. mjh to Allen W. Dulles, cia, February 20, 1958, Box 76, Folder 5, mjh-
nu; Martin and West, Ascent, Triumph, and Disintegration, 9192.
185. Herskovits and Wife Home from 8-Month Tour of Africa, Evanston Review,
October 24, 1957, Melville J. Herskovits File, College of Arts and Sciences
Faculty Reprints, Biographical Files, nu Archives; Northwestern University
Program of African Studies.
186. Northwestern University Program of African Studies.
187. Memorandum On Characteristics of pas, June 2, 1960, Box 88, mjh-nu.
188. Campbell, interview; Herskovits, Program of African Studies: The First
Five Years, 19491953, February 1954, Box 64, mjh-nu; mjh to Cleon
Swayze, April 23, 1959, Reel Number 0292, Grant Number 5518, Grant
Files, Ford Foundation Archives.
189. mjh to Cleon Swayze, July 15, 1958, Northwestern University, Program of
African Studies, Report of Activities, July 1956July 1958, Box 77, mjh-nu.
190. Sub-Committees Report to those invited to the Initial Consultation on
March 13, 1946, In the oce of the British Consul-General, New York, On
the Question of African Students, Series 1.2, Box 288, Folder 3003, geb
Papers.
191. Denzer, In Memoriam.
192. mjh to Kimball Young, Department of Sociology, Northwestern University,
December 19, 1952, Moody E. Prior, Dean, Northwestern University, to
Eduardo Mondlane, April 1, 1953, Box 60, mjh-nu.
294
193. Decker, American Colleges Widen African Study.
194. The quote is from Drake, Reections, 100.
196. Drake, Reections, 91, 93.
197. Drake, Reections, 91, 93; Edgar G. Epps and Glenn R. Howze, Survey of
Black Social Scientists (Final Report), 1971, Box 51, Series 5, Russell Sage
Foundation Papers, Rockefeller Archive Center.
198. Walter Zenner to the author, E-mail communication, June 7, 2001, copy in
the authors possession.
199. Meriwether, Proudly We Can Be Africans, 1046; Simon Ottenberg to the
author, E-mail communication, May 14, 2001, copy in the authors posses-
sion; Erika Bourguignon to the author, E-mail communication, May 17,
2001, copy in the authors possession. Ottenberg and Bourguignon were
both students of Herskovitss during the 1950s.
200. Meriwether, Proudly We Can Be Africans, 1046.
201. Smith, Proposed African Studies At Fisk; Davis to Smith, March 25, 1943,
202. Bourguignon to the author, e-mail communication.
203. Ottenberg to the author, e-mail communication.
204. First Africanist Chair in U.S. Set Up at N.U. Evanston Review, March 23,
1961, Melville J. Herskovits File, College of Arts and Sciences Faculty Re-
prints, Biographical Files, nu Archives. The chair was funded by a $500,000
endowment from Ford and the balance from Northwestern. In March 1961
Frazier congratulated Herskovits upon receiving his endowed chair, No one
in this country deserves this honor more than you. Frazier to mjh, March 21,
1961, Box 93, mjh-nu.
205. Suggestions for Proposals to Ford Foundation, 19611971, February 10,
1960, Box 88, mjh-nu; Wild to Melvin Fox, Ford Foundation, May 17, 1960,
Box 88, mjh-nu. By 1970 more than a hundred Ph.D.s had been awarded to
Northwestern students who had done detailed substantive work in African
Studies. Reports to the Ford Foundation 19691970 for the Program of
African Studies and the National Unity Grant, n.d., Box 278, ccg Files.
206. Lystad, African Studies, 48.
7. Foreign Policy Critic
1. Marte, Political Cycles, 7481.
2. Herskovits, interview; Stocking, Ideas and Institutions, 35. The wartime
collapse and the postwar weakness of many of the colonial powers gave hope
to subjugated peoples in Asia and Africa that independence was conceivable.
Hobsbawm, Age of Extremes, 21517.
3. mjh to Leslie Spier, June 28, 1944, Box 30, mjh-nu.
295
5. Help Put Your Discoveries to Work, Scientists Urged, Chicago Daily News,
June 4, 1948, Box 41, mjh-nu.
6. mjh to Prof. Paul Honigsheim, Mich. State Univ., December 16, 1942, mjh-
nu.
7. mjh to Dr. Kenneth Colegrove, Evanston il, December 1, 1943, enclo-
sure, Herskovits, Northwestern University Group, Universities Committee
on Post-War International Problems, entitled Problem IX, Colonies and
Dependent Areas, Box 27, mjh-nu; Herskovits, Native Self-Government,
41323; mjh to Stettinius, September 12, 1944, Record Group 59, Box 1461,
National Archives, Washington dc.
8. Herskovits, Native Self-Government, 421.
9. Herskovits, Problem IX.
14. Herskovits, Problem IX; Herskovits, Native Self-Government, 42223.
15. Herskovits, Native Self-Government, 42123; Herskovits, Problem IX.
16. The Future of the Colonial System, Northwestern University on the Air: The
Reviewing Stand 3 (June 4, 1944), mjh-sc.
17. Huxley, Colonies and Freedom, 1069; Herskovits, Communication,
28081.
18. Mbono Ojike to mjh, May 18, 1944, Box 30, mjh-nu; Herskovits, Com-
munication, 280.
19. Herskovits, DemocracyFor Whom?
20. Gendzier, Play It Again Sam, 73.
21. Gendzier, Play It Again Sam, 74.
23. Simpson, introduction to Universities and Empire, xvixvii.
24. Simpson, introduction to Universities and Empire, xxi. In 1952 Herskovits
described this transformation more innocuously. He noted that during the
postwar era, social scientists were more and more pressed into the current of
everyday aairs, causing more and more investigators to depart from their
earlier aim of fullling what has been termed the curiosity of function of
scholarship, and devote themselves to the analysis of specic problems raised
by practical needs. Herskovits, Franz Boas, 1023.
25. Needell, Project Troy.
26. Rauch, Area Institute Programs, 418.
27. McGhee quoted in Meriwether, Proudly We Can Be Africans, 7273.
28. mjh to Robert M. Lester, Carnegie Corporation, April 24, 1950, Box 47,
mjh-nu.
296
29. mjh to Kimball Young, December 19, 1952, Box 60, mjh-nu.
30. mjh to Cleon Swayze, April 23, 1959, Reel Number 0292, Grant Number
5518, Grant Files, Ford Foundation Archives.
31. Carter, African Studies, 23; Diggins, Proud Decades, 32021.
32. Dressel, Development of African Studies, 68. After Herskovitss death in
1963, Northwestern began African language study in 1964 and received Title
VI funding in 1965 when the school was added to the list of Language and
Area Centers of the U.S. Oce of Education. Carter, African Studies, 23.
36. Minutes: Meeting of Organizing Committee, International Conference on
Africa, March 27, 1943; Statement Concerning Agenda for a Conference
on Africa, April 19, 1943.
37. McKinley, Lure of Africa, 18788.
38. Statement Concerning Agenda for a Conference on Africa, April 19, 1943.
39. mjh to Willard L. Thorp, April 18, 1950, Box 50, mjh-nu.
40. Social Science Research Council, Second Conference on Social Science
Problems of Point Four, February 23, 1951, Box 54, mjh-nu.
41. Walker, Richard Wright, 274; Vaillant, Black, French, and African, 234. The
founders of the journal included Lopold Senghor, Aim Csaire, Alioune
Diop, and Richard Wright, with support from Jean-Paul Sartre, Andr Gide,
and Albert Camus.
42. Walker, Richard Wright, 274, 27879. American participants at the confer-
ence included Horace Mann Bond, William Fontaine, John A. Davis, Mercer
Cook, and James Baldwin. Du Bois and George Padmore sent messages to
the conference. Frantz Fanon and Cheik Diop also attended. Walker, Richard
Wright, 27680.
43. mjh to Frances Herskovits, August 3, 1962, Box 70, SCmjh-sc.
44. Walker, Richard Wright, 282.
45. Franklin, Living Our Stories, 219.
46. Diggins, Proud Decades, 253.
47. Renteln, Relativism, 57.
48. Benedict quoted in Carey, Ruth Benedict, 210; Renteln, Relativism, 57.
50. Herskovits, On Cultural Values.
51. mjh to Eleanor Roosevelt, June 26, 1947, Box 37, mjh-nu; Statement on
Human Rights, Submitted to the Commission on Human Rights, United
Nations, By the Executive Board, American Anthropological Association,
Box 37, mjh-nu; Morsink, Universal Declaration of Human Rights, ixx.
52. Statement on Human Rights.
53. Statement on Human Rights. Herskovits was advised in September 1947
297
that the aaa statement has been duly noted for consideration in accordance
with the procedure laid down by the United Nations. John P. Humphrey,
Director, Division of Human Rights, United Nations, to mjh, September
25, 1947, Box 37, mjh-nu.
54. Statement on Human Rights, 53943.
55. Statement on Human Rights, 53943.
56. Renteln, Relativism, 67.
57. Steward, Brief Communications.
58. Barnett, Brief Communications.
59. Bennett, Science and Human Rights.
60. Ralph L. Beals to mjh, July 3, 1947, Box 37, mjh-nu.
61. mjh to Beals, July 15, 1947, Box 37, mjh-nu.
62. Lauren, Evolution of International Human Rights, 299303; Glendon, World
Made New, 222.
63. mjh to Stuart Chase, January 27, 1947, Charles Dollard to mjh, January 6,
1947, Box 37, mjh-nu.
65. Mahoney, JFK, 3436.
66. Staniland, American Intellectuals, 26, 28. U.S. government assistance to Africa
rose from averaging less than $25 million per year from 1952 to 1957 to an
average of $150 million per year in the succeeding three years.
67. William Fulbright to Paul H. Douglas, March 30, 1956, mjh to Paul H.
Douglas, April 16, 1956, Box 70, mjh-nu.
69. U.S. Congress, Review of Foreign Policy, 1958, 586.
73. U.S. Congress, Review of Foreign Policy, 1958, 59798; Oliver and Atmore,
Africa since 1800, 199201, 230.
74. Herskovits on the U.S. and Africa.
75. mjh to Logan, June 5, 1959, mjh to David Rockefeller, June 5, 1959, mjh to
Barnett, June 8, 1959, mjh to Frazier, June 8, 1959, mjh to Smythe, June 10,
1959, Frazier to mjh, June 11, 1959, Smythe to mjh, June 13, 1959, Logan to
mjh, June 29, 1959, Box 102, mjh-nu.
76. mjh to Fulbright, August 28, 1959; Herskovits, Study of United States For-
eign Policy, Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate, Study
XIII, United States Foreign Policy in Africa, Box 101, Bound Vol. 2, mjh-
nu. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee published the report on Octo-
ber 23, 1959. Herskovits on the U.S. and Africa. Herskovits also sent the
report to a number of prominent individuals, including Reverend Theo-
dore M. Hesburgh, president, University of Notre Dame, and David Rocke-
298
feller of Chase Manhattan Bank. Hesburgh agreed with Herskovitss recom-
mendations, while Rockefeller expressed no opinion. Hesburgh to mjh,
November 24, 1959, mjh to Hesburgh, December 1, 1959, Rockefeller to
mjh, November 24, 1959, Box 102, mjh-nu.
77. mjh to Horace Kallen, October 21, 1959, Box 88, mjh-nu.
78. Herskovits, Study of United States Foreign Policy, 13.
80. Herskovits, Study of United States Foreign Policy, 1112, 2331.
85. Herskovits, Study of United States Foreign Policy, 1112. In April 1959, as
the nal guest lecturer of the Danforth Foundation Project, Herskovits
noted that the South African situation was ten times greater than our prob-
lem in the South. He also argued that American race relations lead Africans
to view the United States as hypocritical when Americans profess ideals but
do not live up to them. Betty Maynor, Racial Situation Discussed by Recent
Lecturer, no publication indicated, ca. May 1, 1959, Box 85, mjh-nu.
87. Racism WorldwideHerkovitz [sic], Evanston Newsletter, January 23,
1947, Box 41, mjh-nu. In 1959 Herskovits also made eorts to aid South
African professors who were red or censored due to the emergence of gov-
ernment control of the universities in South Africa. He asked the American
Association of University Professors (aaup) and the Ford Foundation to
intercede. The aaup did contribute money to the fund that has been set up
by the Senate of the University of Natal to create a special Fellowship Fund so
that the scholars who have been dismissed can remain in the Union and go on
with their research. Melvin Fox, Ford Foundation, wrote Herskovits in
December 1959 that Natal University was going to hire persecuted pro-
fessors. mjh to Carr, November 11, 1959, Box 87, mjh-nu; mjh to Francis X.
Sutton, Overseas Development Program, Ford Foundation, December 15,
1959, Fox to mjh, December 21, 1959, Box 88, mjh-nu.
88. Herskovits and Wife Home from 8-Month Tour of Africa; President of
Liberia Slates nu Visit, Daily Northwestern, October 21, 1954, Box 69, mjh-
nu; Daily Northwestern, October 26, 1954, Box 69, mjh-nu; Herskovits Diary,
August 8, 1957, entry, African Field Trip, 1957, Box 30, mjh-sc. Herskovitss
travels in Africa and his excellent contacts and reputation among African
leaders led many to visit him in Northwestern. These visits provided excellent
publicity for the African Studies Program. In October 1954 Liberian president
William V. S. Tubman visited Northwestern and met with Herskovits.
299
89. Herskovits Diary, August 9, 1957, entry, African Field Trip, 1957, Box 30,
mjh-sc.
90. Herskovits Diary, African Field Trip, 1957.
99. Open Door in Africa, New York Times, November 6, 1959, Box 102, mjh-
nu.
100. nu Prof. Inuences Foreign Policy, Daily Northwestern, November 12,
1959, Box 102, mjh-nu.
101. Edgar A. Mowrer, Neutralists Shake West, Oklahoma City Times, Novem-
ber 12, 1959, Box 102, mjh-nu.
102. U.S. Congress, United States Foreign Policy.
103. mjh to Alan Merriam, April 7, 1960, Box 89, mjh-nu. George M. Houser,
executive director of the American Committee on Africa, also testied
and generally supported Herskovitss statement. Testimony of George M.
Houser, Executive Director of the American Committee on Africa, before the
Senate Foreign Relations Committee, March 16, 1960, Box 102, mjh-nu.
104. U.S. Congress, United States Foreign Policy, 108.
108. Statement by Melville J. Herskovits, Director, Program of African Stud-
ies, Northwestern University, before the Committee on Foreign Relations,
United States Senate, Wednesday, March 16, 1960, Box 102, mjh-nu.
109. mjh to Alan Merriam, April 7, 1960, Box 89, mjh-nu; U.S. Congress, United
States Foreign Policy, 12948.
110. Storm over South Africa, West Africa, March 26, 1960, Box 102, mjh-nu.
112. Noer, Cold War and Black Liberation, 5458; 50 Killed in South Africa
as Police Fire on Rioters, New York Times, March 22, 1960; Dana Adams
Schmidt, Police Violence in South Africa Criticized by U.S. New York Times,
March 23, 1960; Leonard Ingalls, Criticism By U.S. Irks South Africa, New
York Times, March 24, 1960; Storm over South Africa; all in Box 102, mjh-
nu.
300
115. In July 1955 Herskovits went to Bukavu in the eastern Congo to attend a
meeting of an inter-governmental Commission for Technical Cooperation in
Africa South of the Sahara. News Release, July 25, 1955, Northwestern
University News Service, July 25, 1955, Box 9, College of Arts and Sciences,
Faculty Reprints/Biographical Files, Herskovits, Melville J., Accession 79
19, nu Archives (hereafter cited as cas, fr/bf, mjh, nu Archives).
116. mjh to Jacques J. Maquet, October 28, 1960, Box 93, Folder 12, mjh-nu.
117. New African Leaders Favor Lumumba, Says Herskovits, Evanston Review,
October 27, 1960, Box 9, cas, fr/bf, mjh, nu Archives.
118. Burner, John F. Kennedy, 83.
120. Mahoney, JFK, 24647; Stanley Meisler, Experts Agree U.N. Better Quali-
ed Peacemaker, Houston Chronicle, January 23, 1963, cas, fr/bf, mjh, nu
Archives.
121. Burner, John F. Kennedy, 82.
122. Robert C. Good, Washington Center of Foreign Policy Research, to mjh,
123. Good to mjh, December 10, 1960, Box 102, mjh-nu; Task Force on Sub-
Sahara Africa: Questions, Box 102, mjh-nu; Noer, Cold War and Black
Liberation, 2526.
125. Press release, Department of Information Services, Michigan State Uni-
versity, East Lansing, Michigan, March 10, 1961, cas, fr/bf, mjh, nu
Archives.
126. mjh to Lady Hilda Selwyn-Clarke, London, England, March 13, 1961, Box
94, mjh-nu.
127. fbi form with no title, to Mr. Short, copy to Bureau of African Aairs, dated
July 31, 1961, received after foia request; Memo to W. C. Sullivan from
name deleted, October 19, 1961, received after foia request.
128. fbi report of sa, June 29, 1961, San Francisco Oce, File No. 161187,
Special Inquiry, Subject: Melville Jean Herskovits, received after foia re-
quest; sac, Chicago Oce, fbi to Director, fbi, June 9, 1960, subject: Mel-
ville Jean Herskovits, received after foia request.
129. Memo, sac, Chicago Oce, fbi, to Director, fbi, subject: Melville Jean
Herskovits, June 11, 1962; fbi memo, June 11, 1962, re: Melville Jean Hers-
kovits, no author indicated, received after foia request.
130. Advisory Council on African Aairs, June 1962, Box 98, Folder 20, mjh-nu.
In 1948 Herskovits told a friend, Im likely to be branded a dangerous
Communist any day by the House Un-Americans. . . . But as long as I am
here I do not intend to kowtow to the reactionaries. Davis, Livin the Blues,
293.
131. Herskovits in Africa to Help Celebrate Nigerian Freedom, Evanston Review,
301
September 24, 1960; Senegal President Praises Herskovits, Evanston Re-
view, December 1, 1960; Herskovits to Address un Meet, Daily North-
western, May 5, 1961; all in Box 9, cas, fr/bf, mjh, nu Archives.
132. mjh to Leon-G. Damas, September 27, 1962, Box 96, mjh-nu.
133. fbi Security Investigation Data for Sensitive Position, for Melville J. Hers-
kovits, June 28, 1961, received after foia request.
134. New African Leaders Favor Lumumba.
135. Herskovits, Human Factor, 56. In 1960 Northwestern named Herskovits
Presidents Fellow. This gave him a leave of absence with full pay and the time
to complete the writing of the book. mjh to Alan Merriam, May 19, 1960,
Box 89, mjh-nu.
136. Herskovits, Human Factor, 169.
139. For example, see Wallerstein, review of Human Factor in Changing Africa;
Carter, review of Human Factor in Changing Africa, 3.
143. In November 1962 J. B. Danquah, who was a prominent leader in the Gha-
naian nationalist movement, criticized Herskovitss failure to give credit to
the indigenous independence movement in Ghana going back close to a
hundred years. Instead, Herskovits credited the Pan-African movement, in-
cluding mostly non-Africans, as being the initial organizational spur to the
nationalist movements in Africa. In his reply, Herskovits defended his own
interpretation, maintaining that the Pan-African movement had the broad-
est inuence. This interpretation is somewhat surprising given Herskovitss
usual emphasis on Africans themselves and their own culture. Danquah to
mjh, November 8, 1962, mjh to Danquah, November 27, 1962, Box 96,
mjh-nu.
148. Anthropologist James W. Fernandez, a former student, noted that Herskovits
had tackled a subject too vast, leading to a subpar performance that was not
as incisive as his other books. Nonetheless, No one . . . could have written a
more authoritative survey of Africa as a human problem. James W. Fer-
nandez, review of The Human Factor in Changing Africa, in Journal of Ameri-
can Folklore 77 (OctoberDecember 1964): 35354, Box 71, mjh-sc.
150. Herskovits, Human Factor, 38182, 41415.
302
151. mjh to C. Kenneth Snyder, Deputy Director, African Bureau of Educational
and Cultural Aairs, Department of State, December 26, 1962, Box 98, mjh-
nu; Porter, First International Congress, 200.
152. Mahoney, JFK, 22728, 24448; Marte, Political Cycles, 8288.
153. Marte, Political Cycles, 5859, 17374, 26769, 36465, 36769.
Epilogue
1. Melville Herskovitz [sic], 68 [sic]; Anthropologist on Africa, New York
Times, February 28, 1963.
2. Adams, Education of Henry Adams, 300.
3. Drake, Herskovits and African Diaspora Studies, 42.
4. Drake, Herskovits and African Diaspora Studies, 42.
6. Meier and Rudwick, Black History, 275. Meier and Rudwick reported that
Levine was unfamiliar with Herskovitss writings at the time of the formula-
tion of his perspective. Following the publication of Levines Black Culture
and Black Consciousness: Afro American Folk Thought from Slavery to Freedom
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Meier, Triumph of Melville J. Herskovits.
7. Scott, Contempt and Pity, 15059; Moynihan, Negro Family.
8. Southern, Gunnar Myrdal, 265.
9. Giddings, When and Where I Enter, 326.
10. Billingsley, Climbing Jacobs Ladder, 8384, 95.
12. In a 1996 lecture at North Carolina Central University, Durham, Bobby
Seale, cofounder of the Black Panther Party, mentioned that Herskovitss
ideas were inuential in his reexamination of his ideas about black culture
and history. In 1988 sociologist St. Clair Drake recalled that the Black Pan-
thers had invoked Herskovitss studies during the 1960s. Drake, Herskovits
and African Diaspora Studies, 42.
14. Van Deburg, New Day in Babylon, 17091.
16. Gates quoted in Ariel Swartley, Wonders of the African World: Television
Focuses on Africas Human History, New York Times October 24, 1999,
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25, 1999.
17. Mintz and Price, Birth of African-American Culture, 82.
19. Fishkin, Interrogating Whiteness. See also Philips, The African Heritage
of White America.
303
21. Levine, Black Culture, 45.
23. Edward B. Fiske, For Black Studies, the Fight Goes On, New York Times,
January 13, 1983.
24. Fiske, For Black Studies.
25. Black Studies Struggling.
26. Peter Applebome, Can Harvards Powerhouse Alter the Course of Black
Studies, New York Times, November 3, 1996.
27. Cummings, African and Afro-American Studies Centers, 29495.
29. Meier and Rudwick, Black History, 29091; Gershenhorn, Life and Writings
of Earlie Endris Thorpe, 9394.
30. A Debate on Activism in Black Studies, New York Times, April 4, 1998
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32. Henry Louis Gates Jr., A Call to Protect Academic Integrity from Politics,
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33. Moore, Changing Perspectives, 7.
34. Guyer, African Studies, 58.
35. Guyer, African Studies, 53; Melville J. HerskovitsA Life Devoted to Afri-
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36. Stuckey, Melville J. Herskovits, 30.
37. Skinner, African Studies, 62. In 1968, at the annual asa meeting in Los
Angeles, a Black Caucus was formed, which demanded that the asa institute
policies to render itself more relevant to deal with the conditions of black
people in Africa and the African diaspora; increase the number of blacks in
policy-making decisions in the organization; address itself to the youth of the
country; seek out African and Afro-American scholars to direct the emerging
African and Afro-American Studies Centers; and help change American pub-
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38. Skinner, African Studies, 6364; Guyer, African Studies, 59.
39. Cummings, African and Afro-American Studies, 303.
40. Guyer, African Studies in the United States, 59.
44. DSouza, End of Racism, 24.
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46. Annan, Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
47. The Text of President Clintons State of the Union Address to Congress,
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329
Index
Abrahams, Roger D., 70
acculturation, 5, 6, 5960, 65, 8792, 110,
112, 136, 226, 234, 253n31, 253n32,
260n198
Adams, Henry, 231
Addams, Jane, 67
Africa, 2, 6, 178, 182, 19194, 198200,
210, 213; Communism in, 219; inde-
pendence movements in, 2014, 206,
21417, 221, 225, 294n2; languages in,
2067, 296n32; nationalism of, 171,
202, 206, 214, 21920, 22325, 227;
and Operation Torch, 178
African Academy of Arts and Research,
173
African American culture, 1, 99103
African American history, 271n79
African Americans, 1, 2, 6162; intellec-
tuals, 99102, 1057, 11617, 136,
14345, 15667; and social pathologies,
113, 118, 12021, 209, 23233, 237;
students, 19798; study of, 13537, 187
African American studies. See black studies
African diaspora, 126
African Heritage Studies Association
(ahsa), 236
African independence, 6, 2014
Africans, 1, 203; intellectuals, 11617,
197; students, 197, 216, 225
African studies, 1, 3, 6, 119, 169, 16975,
179200, 206, 228, 231, 23536,
288n100, 291n158, 303n37
African Studies Association (asa), 6, 169,
19596, 236, 303n37
African Studies Bulletin, 195
African Studies Review, 195
Alford, Kwame, 173
Algeria, 216
American Anthropological Association,
89, 136, 174; and Statement on Human
Rights, 6, 21014
American Anthropologist, 8889
American Civil Liberties Union, 16, 131
American Committee for Democracy and
Intellectual Freedom, 131
American Council of Learned Societies
(acls), 9, 81, 131, 13334, 150, 178
79, 281n244. See also Committee on
Negro Studies
American Council on African Education,
173
American Economic Association, 125
American identity, 60, 67
American Indians, 12930, 174
American Journal of Physical Anthropology,
53
American Museum of Natural History,
23, 28
American Negro Academy, 67
American Political Science Association,
125
American Social Science Association,
123
American Sociological Association, 118
Anglo-American Pentagon Talks of 1947,
205
Angola, 229
Annan, Ko, 238
anthropometry, 18, 19, 22, 27, 50, 52, 56
57, 247n52
anti-Semitism, 13, 14, 20, 21, 61, 116, 127,
155; quotas and, 14
applied anthropology, 12829, 17576
Aptheker, Herbert, 111, 142, 158, 160
Index
330
area studies, 169, 171, 175, 178, 18283,
186, 19192, 19495, 201, 292n170
Asia, 210, 213
assimilation, 88, 90, 92, 253n31, 253n32
assimilationism, 5, 5966, 9293, 103,
109, 116, 118, 232
Association for the Study of Negro Life
and History (asnlh), 136, 14546,
172, 241n9
Azikiwe, Nnamdi, 206
Baker, Lee, 118
Baker, Newton, 9495
Barkan, Elazar, 23
Barnes, Albert, 64
Barnett, Claude, 193, 216
Barnett, Homer, 21112
Baron, Robert, 7
Bascom, William R., 137, 140, 172, 174,
190
Basham, Parma, 177
Bates, Oric, 173
Bauer, Alice, 142
Bauer, Raymond, 142
Beals, Ralph L., 212
Bean, Robert Bennett, 20, 4243
Beard, Charles, 15, 12324
Belgium, 202, 216, 22223
Benedict, Ruth, 16, 17, 23, 84, 88, 112,
130, 17576, 209
Bennett, John, 212
Bentley, Madison, 155
Berman, Edward, 171, 195
Beyond the Melting Pot (Moynihan and
Glazer), 118
biology, 18
Billingsley, Andrew, 233
black nationalism, 8384, 100, 115, 152,
23233, 302n12
Black Panther Party, 233, 302n12
black studies, 126, 135, 146, 161, 16566,
18587, 231, 23435, 241n9, 272n85.
See also Negro studies
black studies programs, 1, 2, 3, 23435
Board of Economic Warfare (bew), 175
76
Boas, Franz, 8, 15, 16, 21, 28, 31, 32, 40,
45, 47, 53, 54, 56, 71, 79, 81, 88, 1302,
13335, 139, 154, 172, 176, 251n146,
252n1, 25354n38; and culture con-
cept, 17, 25, 29, 66; and head-form
studies, 20, 2223, 244n64; and race
concept, 17, 20, 23
Bohannon, Paul, 50, 56, 251n160
Bond, Horace Mann, 291n158
Boston University, 19495, 206
Bourguignon, Erika, 140
Bourne, Randolph, 67, 254n41
Bowles, Chester, 191
Brawley, Benjamin, 154, 272n85
Brazil, 8587, 106, 135, 180
Brigham, Carl, 47, 48
Britain, 86, 205, 216
Broca, Paul, 19, 20
Brooklyn College, 139
Brown, Sterling, 150, 16162, 16465
Bunche, Ralph, 10, 99, 102, 108, 116, 130
7, 14041, 143, 15152, 15658, 161,
17374, 182, 193, 198, 275n130
Bureau of American Ethnology, 65, 198
Bureau of Indian Aairs, 129, 198
Busia, Ko A., 197
Cameron, Vivian, 4041, 138, 273n100
Cameroons, 22021
Campbell, Donald, 112
Camper, Peter, 19
Carnegie, Andrew, 94
Carnegie Corporation of New York, 27,
84, 92, 94, 13435, 145, 178, 183, 184
85, 18792, 19596, 292n172; and
American Negro Study, 9398, 1028,
15658, 187, 261n8; and Encyclopedia
of the Negro project, 149, 153, 15557
Carnegie Institute of Washington, 95
Carroll, Joseph C., 142
The Cattle Complex in East Africa
(Ph.D. diss.), 2325, 244n69
Central Intelligence Agency (cia), 222
23, 229, 293n184
Csaire, Aim, 208
China, 229
Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, 252n5
Chiume, W. Kanyama, 220
Christianity, 226
City College of New York, 233
Civil Aairs Training Program, 208
civil rights movement, 117, 232, 234
Clark, John, 16162
Clinton, William J., 23839
Index
331
Cobb, W. Montague, 15758
Cold War, 6, 7, 8, 16970, 183, 191, 196,
199201, 2046, 215, 21921, 22324,
22829
Cole, Johnnetta B., 10, 139, 198, 274n106
Collier, John, 68
colonialism. See imperialism
Color and Democracy: Colonies and Peace
(Du Bois), 204
Columbia University, 14, 16, 17, 23, 32,
71, 79, 81, 94, 95, 127, 138, 235,
241n27
Committee for Industrial Organization,
152
Committee on African Students in North
America, 197
Committee on Interracial Cooperation,
148
Committee on Negro Studies (cons), 8,
15767, 279n204, 280n220, 282n249,
282n260
Communism, 191, 205, 214, 21920, 222
24, 227
Conference on Jewish Relations, 131
Congo, 24, 220, 22223, 229, 300n115
Coolidge, Calvin, 30
Cooper, John M., 89
Cosmos Club, 131
Council of African Aairs, 173
Council on Foreign Relations, 190
Crane, Robert, 8990, 95
cranial index, 19
Cressman, Luther, 241n27
Crvecoeur, Michel-Guillaume Jean de, 60
Cuba, 106, 161
cultural diversity, 1, 2, 5, 59, 92
cultural focus, 85
cultural hierarchy, 23, 25, 60, 62, 88, 91,
101, 112, 135, 23738
cultural particularism, 60, 62, 92, 126, 232,
23738
cultural pluralism, 5, 6, 7, 62, 6768, 119,
203, 209, 236, 254n41
cultural relativism, 3, 6, 9, 10, 15, 25, 112,
126, 128, 130, 203, 207, 20914, 231,
23638
Czechoslovakia, 214, 225
Dahomey, 76, 7882, 10910
Danquah, J. B., 301n143
Darnell, Regna, 17
Daugherty, D. H., 16166
Davenport, Charles B., 28, 36, 42, 249n89
Davis, Allison, 155, 164
Davis, Frank Marshall, 117, 177, 267n134
Davis, Jackson, 153, 18081
Day, Caroline Bond, 248n68
decolonization, 7
Dewey, John, 15, 67
Diggins, John, 209
Diggs, Irene, 151
Dike, Kenneth O., 197
Diner, Hasia, 21
Dollard, Charles, 98, 15556, 183, 18990
Douglas, Paul, 131, 214
Dowd, Jerome, 105
Downey, June, 46
Downey Will-Temperament Test, 4647
Drake, St. Clair, 106, 127, 138, 198, 231
DSouza, Dinesh, 2, 237
Dubofsky, Melvyn, 16
Du Bois, W. E. B., 10, 23, 32, 43, 6768,
79, 83, 99100, 1057, 11112, 114,
126, 1306, 136, 14344, 158, 16163,
167, 172, 204, 207, 241n9, 249n96,
272n79; and Encyclopedia of the Negro
project, 14856, 166; and The Souls of
Black Folk, 68
Dulles, Allen, 222, 293n184
Dunham, Katherine, 140
Durkee, J. Stanley, 33
Eggan, Fred, 28
Einstein, Albert, 15
Eisenhower, Dwight D., 171, 191, 201,
21415, 22224, 228
Ellington, Duke, 14
Ellison, Ralph, 121
Embree, Edwin, 4546, 182
Encyclopedia of the Negro project, 1306,
14857, 16667, 277n163, 277n167,
277n168, 277n176, 278n183
Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, 153,
250n131
ethnocentrism, 3, 6
Ethnogeographic Board, 178, 18283,
287n83
eugenics, 23, 28
European Economic Community (eec),
220
Index
332
fascism, 116
Fauset, Arthur Hu, 64, 136
Federal Bureau of Investigation (fbi),
22425
Fichte, Johann, 67
First International Congress of Africa-
nists, 228
Fishel, Leslie H., Jr., 272n79
Fisher, Donald, 124
Fishkin, Shelley Fisher, 234
Fisk University, 136, 170, 17982, 199
folklore, 136, 141, 257n131
Ford Foundation, 171, 183, 19095, 199;
and Foreign Area Fellowship Program,
192, 195, 291n153, 292n170, 292n172
Foreign Aairs, 203
Foreign Relations Committee. See U.S.
Senate Foreign Relations Committee
Foreign Service Institute, 206
Fortes, Meyer, 116
France, 2012, 216
Franklin, John Hope, 14244, 163
Franklin, V. P., 102
Frazier, E. Franklin, 45, 93, 99102, 105,
111, 11318, 120, 1309, 132, 13536,
138, 149, 15152, 156, 158, 167, 216,
232, 263n46
freedom, 21011
Fulbright, J. William, 214
Fulbright research fellowships, 185
fundamentalism, 124, 130
Gaither, H. Rowan, Jr., 191
Galton Society, 23, 28, 31, 42
Garifuna, 139
Gardner, John W., 18485, 189, 19192
Garvey, Marcus, 100, 11516
Garrison, Lloyd, 182
Gates, Henry Louis, Jr., 233, 235
General Education Board (geb), 138,
145, 149, 153, 15556, 159, 17981,
197, 273n100
Germany, 209, 211
Ghana, 197, 215, 228, 301n143
Gitlin, Todd, 2, 237
Glazer, Nathan, 118
Goggin, Jacqueline, 144
Goldenweiser, Alexander, 15, 16, 17, 21
Good, Robert C., 223
Goodchild, Donald, 16364
Gould, Stephen J., 19
Gouldner, Alvin, 123
Grant, Madison, 22, 28, 30, 52
Graves, Mortimer, 133
Grebo, 70
Greenberg, Joseph H., 13334, 140, 148,
156, 172, 174
Greene, Lorenzo, 163
Guiana, 85, 106
Guinea, 214
Gullah, 103, 109, 180
Gutman, Herbert G., 233
Haiti, 77, 8184, 87, 103, 1067, 109,
14041, 231, 258n154
Hallowell, A. Irving, 16, 184, 288n99
Hansberry, William Leo, 33, 17273, 199,
283n17
Harding, Vincent, 235
Hare, Nathan, 235
Harlem Renaissance, 8, 63, 6768
Harris, Abram L., 32, 95, 99, 138, 150,
158, 161
Harris, Jack, 172, 174, 193
Harris, Joseph E., 172
Harris, Robert L., Jr., 8, 166, 282n260
Harrison, Shelby, 108
Harvard University, 53, 173
Haynes, George E., 272n85
Hebrew Union College, 13
Henry, Charles P., 143
Herder, Johann von, 67
Herskovits, Charlotte (sister), 12
Herskovits, Frances Shapiro (wife), 16,
7173, 76, 7880, 8687, 104, 1303,
13012, 139, 143, 180
Herskovits, Henrietta (mother), 11, 12
Herskovits, Herman (father), 11, 12, 14,
1301
Herskovits, Jean (daughter), 84, 116, 233
Herskovits, Melville J., 3, 1303, 1304,
13010, 13011; and acculturation studies,
59, 60, 8792; as advocate for black
scholars, 13843, 150, 286n70; and
African cultural inuence on African
American cultures, 5, 59, 61, 6870, 74
78, 8187, 9299, 10221, 132, 135,
180, 232, 234; and African cultures, 23,
7880, 104, 111, 131, 175; and African
studies, 119, 16975, 179200, 231,
Index
333
235; and African Studies Program at
Northwestern University, 118, 169, 179,
18390, 19299, 201, 2056, 216, 218,
225, 236, 289n114, 292n171, 292n172,
294n204, 294n205, 296n32, 298n88;
and American identity, 60; and an-
thropometry, 2830, 3344, 5657, 96,
246n28; and anti-Semitism, 21, 61, 127;
attacks applied anthropology, 12830;
attacks racial hierarchy, 21, 63, 23738;
and black intellectuals, 13846, 16067,
275n130, 282n249; and Board of Eco-
nomic Warfare, 17677, 180; and child-
hood, 1112; and Columbia University,
8, 23, 29, 31, 138; as critic of imperial-
ism, 130, 170, 201, 2034, 210, 21214,
22021, 231; as critic of racism, 62,
1045, 111, 125, 12728, 13031, 177,
214, 21718; as critic of U.S. foreign
policy, 21425, 229, 298n85; and cul-
tural hierarchy, 60, 210, 23738; and
cultural relativism, 25, 130, 170, 203,
207, 20913, 238; and W. E. B. Du
Bois, 32, 14856; education of, 1218,
2325; and Encyclopedia of the Negro
project, 14856, 16667; eldwork of,
59, 98, 106, 126; , in Brazil, 5, 8687,
92, 135, 259n175; , in Dahomey, 5,
72, 7880, 92, 108, 13334; , in Gold
Coast, 7879; , in Haiti, 5, 72, 81
82, 92, 108, 134; , in Nigeria, 7879;
, in Suriname, 5, 52, 6465, 7079,
92, 104, 108, 13334, 255n82; , in
Trinidad, 5, 81, 8486, 92, 135, 234;
eldwork method of, 7274; and Ford
Foundation, 187, 190, 19293, 199,
298n87; and General Education Board
(geb), 138, 17981, 184; and intel-
ligence tests, 4649, 5152; and Jewish
identity, 1113, 21, 61, 127, 155; and
Jewish refugees, 177; masters thesis of,
16; and Negro studies, 9, 94, 98, 126
27, 135, 13738, 143; and the New
School for Social Research, 16; and
Northwestern University, 127, 131,
13541, 174, 252n1; Ph.D. dissertation
of, 2325, 244n69; and objectivity, 9,
1067, 12530, 15455, 15758, 166,
19798, 202; radical politics of, 14, 15,
131; and Rockefeller Foundation, 134
35, 189, 270n63, 289n103; and Rosen-
wald Fund, 138, 140; testimony of,
before Foreign Relations Committee,
21521; as social critic, 6; and Social
Science Research Council, 13234, 138,
140, 14243, 155, 189, 208, 260n196;
and Statement on Human Rights, 210
11, 296n53; as teacher, 13542, 17374,
177; at University of Chicago, 13; at
University of Poitiers, 13, 72; and Car-
ter G. Woodson, 14548; and World
War I, 13; and World War II, 52, 176
78
Works: Acculturation: The Study of Cul-
ture Contact, 8991; The American
Negro: A Study in Racial Crossing, 4, 38
40, 4246, 49, 147, 248n86, 273n95;
The Anthropometry of the Negro, 40;
Dahomean Narrative: A Cross-Cultural
Analysis, 257n131, Dahomey: An Ancient
West African Kingdom, 7980, 175; The
Human Factor in Changing Africa, 225
28, 301n148; Life in a Haitian Valley,
8184, 134, 258n154; Man and His
Works: The Science of Cultural Anthropol-
ogy, 55, 56, 170 ; The Myth of the Negro
Past, 5, 7, 8, 10, 9293, 10819, 12526,
130, 208, 23334, 265n83, 265n84;
Rebel Destiny: Among the Bush Negroes of
Dutch Guiana, 78; Suriname Folklore,
78; Trinidad Village, 86
Herzog, George, 84
Holland, 202
Holloway, Jonathan, 116
Holocaust, 17677
Honduras, 139, 162
Hooton, Earnest A., 31, 53, 129, 251n160
Hornbostel, Erich M. Von, 64, 69, 75
Houser, George M., 299n103
House Un-American Activities Commit-
tee, 224
Howard University, 32, 33, 34, 35, 38, 42,
45, 48, 49, 99, 102, 136, 143, 152, 159,
161, 17273, 19395, 206, 272n85
Hughes, Everett, 118
Hughes, Langston, 14
Hulsizer, Allan, 112
human rights, 20914, 238
Hurston, Zora Neale, 3233, 66, 6970,
86, 136, 138
Index
334
Ibo, 215, 227
identity politics, 2, 3
immigration, 2, 22, 6061, 252n5
Immigration Restriction League, 14, 22
imperialism, 1, 18, 80, 86, 12830, 140
41, 181, 185, 2014, 20917, 22021,
229, 231
India, 211, 227
Industrial Workers of the World (iww),
15, 16, 131
integration, 100, 218, 233
intelligence tests, 4650, 124
International African Institute, 182, 184
85
International Anthropological Institute,
245n20
International Education Board (ieb), 30
31
Islam, 226
Jackson, Walter A., 8
Janken, Kenneth, 8, 161, 167
Japan, 2089
Jews, 54, 61, 67, 127, 155; ghting racism,
2021
Johnson, Alvin, 153
Johnson, Charles S., 32, 45, 63, 105, 116,
132, 13536, 158, 167, 17981, 246n34
Johnson, Guy B., 84, 93, 98, 1023, 105,
1078, 11416, 152
Johnson, James Weldon, 67, 246n28,
252n19
Johnson, J. Rosamond, 246n28
Johnson, Mordecai, 152, 154
Jones, Thomas E., 181
Jones, Thomas Jesse, 145, 14849, 207
Journal of American Folk-Lore, 136
Journal of Black Studies, 23435
Journal of Negro History, 136, 142, 14445,
14748, 172
Just, Ernest E., 34, 143, 173
Kahn, Morton C., 71
Kallen, Horace, 15, 67, 201, 254n41
Kardiner, Abram, 120
Karl, Barry, 124
Kasavubu, Joseph, 222
Katanga, 222
Kazin, Alfred, 169
Kellogg, Paul, 63
Kennedy, John F., 191, 221, 22324, 22829
Kenya, 206
Keppel, Frederick P., 9496, 108, 153, 183,
265n83
Khoikhoi, 24
Kiano, Julius G., 193
Kidder, Alfred, 95, 133
King, James F., 160, 16364
King, Louis E., 32, 38, 138, 273n95
King, Martin Luther, Jr., 234
Klineberg, Otto, 21, 28, 47, 49, 16163
Kroeber, Alfred L., 17, 31, 47
Ku Klux Klan, 61, 252n9
Ladner, Joyce, 23233
Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial,
132, 134
Leland, Waldo, 150, 162, 279n204
Levine, Lawrence, 232, 234
Lewinson, Paul, 159, 16465
Lewis, David L., 21, 68, 151
Lewis, Sinclair, 14
Liberia, 139, 198, 298n88
Liberian Foundation, 173
Library of Congress, 155, 195
Lincoln University, 159, 193, 291n158
Linton, Ralph, 28, 88
Locke, Alain, 32, 33, 34, 35, 45, 6364, 67,
80, 102, 113, 1306, 131, 149, 158, 173,
246n34
Logan, Rayford, 141, 151, 156, 16163,
19394, 216, 272n79, 275n142
Long, H. H., 143
Loram, Charles T., 152, 154, 173, 175
Louis, Joe, 45
Lowell, A. Lawrence, 14
Lowie, Robert, 17, 243n40
Lumumba, Patrice, 22223
Lynd, Robert, 125
Lystad, Robert A., 199
Malcolm X, 93
Malinowski, Bronislaw, 72, 129, 155
Mall, Franklin, 20
Mandlebaum, David, 21, 243n60
Marable, Manning, 235
Marxism, 99100, 102, 152
Masai, 227
Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
206
Index
335
Maxwell, Greene, 32, 138
Mboya, Tom, 206
McBride, Allan, 182
McGhee, George C., 206
McGurk, C. J., 52
McKee, James, 62, 167
McNamara, John B., 22425
Mead, Margaret, 16, 17, 21, 28, 47, 48,
241n27; and Coming of Age in Samoa,
130
Meier, August, 41, 272n79
melting pot, 6061, 254n41
Melville J. Herskovits Library of African
Studies, 236
Mencken, H. L., 15, 277n168
Merriam, Alan, 119, 140
Merriam, John, 95
Michigan State University, 206
Middle East, 205, 223
Millay, Edna St. Vincent, 14
Miller, J. Roscoe, 13011
Miller, Kelly, 149
Mintz, Sidney, 3, 234
Mobutu, Joseph, 222, 229
modernism, 11, 1415
Moens, Herman M. B., 33, 34, 35
Mondlane, Eduardo, 197, 206
Monod, Theodore, 51
Montagu, Ashley, 21, 130
Moore, Sally Falk, 25, 188, 235
Moton, Robert R., 148
Moynihan, Daniel Patrick, 118, 232,
263n46
Mozambique, 197, 206, 229
mulattoes, 4, 30, 35, 38, 4043, 48, 52, 69,
83, 114, 249n96, 249n107
multiculturalism, 2, 3, 23637
Myrdal, Gunnar, 9599, 1023, 1078,
118, 1308, 144, 15758, 190, 232; and
An American Dilemma, 113, 121,
248n83
Nation, 176
National Archives, 159
National Association for the Advance-
ment of Colored People (naacp), 32,
116, 118, 128, 144, 149
National Council of the Arts, Sciences,
and Professions, 225
National Council for Black Studies, 235
National Defense Education Act (ndea),
206
National Negro Congress, 100
National Origins Act, 61
National Research Council (nrc), 27,
3031, 33, 40, 81, 95, 13334, 150,
154, 17879, 182, 18485; Board of
National Research Fellowships in the
Biological Sciences, 28, 31; Committee
on African Anthropology, 182, 18586;
Committee on Scientic Problems of
Human Migrations (csphm), 27, 28,
133
Native Americans. See American Indians
Nativism, 2122, 2728, 6061
Nazis, 52, 135, 17778, 209, 21112
Negritude, 208, 215
The Negro Family: The Case for National
Action (Moynihan), 232
Negro studies, 126, 135, 146, 157, 161,
235. See also black studies
The New Negro (Locke), 32, 6364, 77,
252n15
New School for Social Research, 15, 67
New York, 1415
Nigeria, 84, 116, 197, 199, 204, 206, 215,
222, 225, 227
Nixon, Richard, 171, 192
Nkrumah, Kwame, 215
North Atlantic Treaty Organization
(nato), 201, 214, 217, 224, 229
Northwestern University, 4, 14, 131, 134
39, 174, 176, 18690, 192, 195, 197, 206
Nott, Josiah Clark, 105
Nyasaland, 220
objectivity, 113, 12324, 143, 14851,
15355, 16667, 19698, 202, 21112,
235
Odegaard, Charles, 166
ODonnell, Kenneth, 224
Odum, Howard, 105
Oce of the Coordinator of Inter-
American Aairs (ociaa), 16162,
281n244
Oce of Strategic Services, 175
Ogburn, William F., 17, 108, 243n40
Ojikwe, Mbono, 204
Okigbo, Pius Nwabufo Charles, 197
Opportunity, 63
Index
336
Ottenberg, Simon, 73, 199
Ovesey, Lionel, 120
Pan-African Congress, 126
Pan-Africanism, 12627, 301n143
Paris Peace Conference, 124
Park, Robert, 6263, 1012, 105, 114,
135, 152, 179
Parsons, Elsie Clews, 7071, 79, 81, 133,
15051, 154, 15758
particularism, 2, 10
Pattee, Richard, 16163
Patterns of Culture (Benedict), 209
Peabody Museum, 173
Peterson, Joseph, 37, 43, 49, 50, 143
Peterson, Sadie Marie, 31
Phelps-Stokes Fund, 145, 14849, 182,
207
Phillips, U. B., 105, 272n79
physical anthropology, 9, 18, 2857, 59,
68, 96, 132, 137, 138, 226, 238,
251n146. See also anthropometry
Platt, Anthony, 115
Point IV, 205, 208
Porter, Dorothy, 159
Porter, Kenneth W., 16364
Portugal, 216, 229
Posner, Ernst, 159
Powell, John Wesley, 65
Prsence Africaine, 208
Price, Richard, 72, 74, 234
Price, Sally, 74
Price-Mars, Jean, 81
Pride, Armistead, 159, 165
Progressive Citizens of Illinois, 224
Progressive Era, 123, 128
Progressives, 12324
Project Troy, 206
race, 4, 18, 37; and classication schemes,
4748, 55
race concept, 28, 37, 39, 44, 4951, 55
race mixing, 2930, 37
racial hierarchy, 1821, 47, 59, 23738
racial politics, 3
racism, 18, 128, 130
Radin, Paul, 17
Rand Corporation, 191
Reddick, Lawrence D., 15862, 16465
Redeld, Robert, 33, 84, 88, 90, 211
reinterpretation, 85, 226, 234
Renda, Mary, 82
Retzius, Anders, 19
Reuter, Edward B., 105, 114, 249n107
Ricks, George Robinson, 119
Robeson, Eslanda, 32
Robeson, Paul, 32, 126, 264n65, 281n247
Robeson, Paul, Jr., 254n41
Rockefeller, David, 216
Rockefeller Foundation, 9, 27, 81, 8687,
13435, 144, 157, 17879, 18385,
292n172. See also Laura Spelman Rocke-
feller Memorial
Rockefeller, Nelson, 16162
Rogers, Joel A., 64
Roosevelt, Eleanor, 210
Roosevelt, Franklin D., 129, 178
Roosevelt College, 181, 190, 195
Rose, Arnold, 120
Rosenwald Fund, 45, 50, 138, 140, 145,
149, 159, 182
Royal Anthropological Society, 181
Ruanda, 22021
Ruml, Beardsley, 132
Russell Sage Foundation, 108
San, 24
Sapir, Edward, 17, 88
Satterthwaite, Joseph, 221
Schapera, Isaac, 88
Schomburg, Arthur A., 32, 64, 1306
Schomburg Center, 159
School of Advanced International Studies,
173
Scott, Daryl, 120
Scott, Walter D., 137
Seabrook, William, and The Magic Island,
82
Seale, Bobby, 302n12
Seeger, Charles, 162
segregation, 117, 131
Seligmann, Herbert J., 128
Senegal, 225
Senghor, Lopold Sdar, 225
Shouters, 8586
Simpson, Christopher, 205
Simpson, George E., 7, 13940, 158
Sister Souljah, 231
Skinner, Elliot, 196
slave resistance, 14142
Index
337
slavery, 77, 1013, 107, 109, 111, 114, 117,
131, 14142, 147, 209, 233
Smith, Edwin, 181, 198
Smith, Mark C., 125
Smith, M. G., 120
Smithsonian Institution, 178
Smuts, J. C., 218
Smythe, Hugh H., 13839, 162, 216
Snyder, Franklyn, 186
Social Darwinism, 18
social engineering, 157
socialized ambivalence, 8384, 107
Social Science Research Council (ssrc),
9, 8890, 95, 13234, 138, 14243, 155,
160, 17879, 184, 190, 208
Society for Applied Anthropology, 176
sociologists, 62, 89, 11213, 13536, 167
South Africa, 88, 173, 193, 21721, 223,
229, 298n85, 298n87; and Sharpeville
Massacre, 221
South African Bureau for Racial Aairs
(sabra), 219
Southern Agrarians, 68
Southern Rhodesia, 218
Southern Tenant Farmers Union, 152
South-West Africa, 21718, 221, 223
Soviet Union, 171, 183, 19192, 2056,
214, 22224, 22829
Spencer, Herbert, 18, 30
Spier, Leslie, 53, 8889
Spingarn, Joel, 154
Sputnik, 206
Staneld, John, 14344
Stanford University, 195
Staniland, Martin, 174
Stettinius, Edward, 204
Stevenson, Adlai, 224
Steward, Julian, 211
Stoddard, Lothrop, 52
Stokes, Anson Phelps, 14851, 15355,
182
Stouer, Samuel, 265n82
Stuckey, Sterling, 126, 236
Suriname, 52, 7079, 81, 106, 141, 154,
255n70
Survey Graphic, 63, 252n15
Swados, Felice, 142
Sweden, 108
syncretisms, 77, 8285, 103, 226
Szwed, John, 119
Tanganyika, 218
Taylor, A. A., 163
Temple University, 235
Thompson, Era Belle, 198
Thorndike, Edward L., 31, 95
Thorpe, Earlie, 144
Thuesen, Sarah, 103
Todd, Arthur J., 252n1
Todd, T. Wingate, 36, 37, 38, 43, 5253,
154, 247n52
Togo, 221
Tour, Sekou, 214
Tozzer, Alfred M., 31
Treitschke, Heinrich von, 67
Trinidad, 81, 8486, 140, 234
Tubman, William V. S., 13011, 298n88
Turner, Lorenzo D., 138, 158, 16162,
16465, 174, 17981, 286n70
Tuskegee Institute, 40, 62, 148
Uganda, 225
United Nations (un), 2, 182, 192, 196,
20910, 220, 22224, 229. See also
Universal Declaration of Human
Rights
United States (U.S.), 83, 169, 171, 183,
2013, 205, 211; and relations with
Africa, 21425
Universal Declaration of Human Rights
(udhr), 2, 6, 20913, 238
universalism, 2, 10, 126, 213, 232, 23738
Universal Negro Improvement Associa-
tion, 116
University of California at Los Angeles
(ucla), 206, 212
University of Chicago, 62, 101, 127, 135,
137, 190
University of Pennsylvania, 170, 17982,
18485, 188, 199
University of Poitiers, 13, 72
Urban League, 32
U.S. Congress, 22
U.S. Information Agency, 196
U.S. Marine Corps, 8182
U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Commit-
tee, 21421
U.S. State Department, 139, 161, 185,
193, 196, 221, 225; and Oce of African
Aairs, 214; and Bureau of African
Aairs, 224
Index
338
Van Lier, A. C., 74
Veblein, Thorstein, 15, 16
Victorian era, 11
Vodun, 8183
Wallace, Henry, 176, 182
War Relocation Authority, 175
Washington, Booker T., 62
Watkins, Mark H., 17981, 286n70
Weatherford, W. D., 105
Wenner-Gren Foundation, 292n172
Wesley, Charles, 163
White, Charles, 30
White, Walter, 32, 149
white supremacy, 3, 6
Wieschho, Heinrich, 17980, 182
Wild, Payson, 189
Willey, Malcolm, 16, 65
Williams, Eric, 86, 15960, 16465
Williams, G. Mennen, 224
Williamson, Joel, 45
Willis, William S., 20
Wilson, Woodrow, 94
Wish, Harvey, 111, 142, 158
Wissler, Clark, 23, 28, 31, 88; and culture
areas, 23
Woodson, Carter G., 10, 4345, 8081,
99100, 1057, 11011, 114, 12627,
1305, 136, 14349, 158, 161, 163, 172,
207, 241n9, 246n29, 272n85, 276n150,
287n86
Woodward, C. Vann, 23334
Woofter, T. J., Jr., 46, 105
Works Progress Administration, 155
World War I, 13, 22, 2728, 47, 124, 176,
223
World War II, 6, 108, 135, 137, 139, 142,
16971, 17578, 182, 2014, 209,
294n2
Wright, Richard, 102, 208
Yale University, 173, 195
Yergan, Max, 272n79
Yerkes, Robert M., 28, 31
Yoruba, 215
Young, Donald, 90, 9596, 108, 134, 146,
15053, 15556, 158, 160, 162, 16465,
276n150
Young, Roland, 190
Zangwill, Israel, 61
In the Critical Studies in the History of Anthropology series
Invisible Genealogies: A History of Americanist Anthropology
Regna Darnell
The Shaping of American Ethnography: The Wilkes Exploring Expedition,
18381842
Barry Alan Joyce
Ruth Landes: A Life in Anthropology
Sally Cole
Melville J. Herskovits and the Racial Politics of Knowledge
Jerry Gershenhorn
Leslie A. White: Evolution and Revolution in Anthropology
William J. Peace

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Melville J.

Herskovits and the Racial Politics of Knowledge

Although these strategies have yielded important gains in the United

On the other side, many conservatives and religious fundamen-

Paralleling this American debate on identity politics is an international

He could just as easily have made this statement

When Herskovits entered academia in the early 1920s, white

Herskovits sought to undermine racial and cultural hierarchy through-

Prominent liberal scholars, black and white, rejected Herskovitss con-

Herskovits countered this position by insisting that black

During these years Herskovits convinced anthropologists to accept

Simpson, however, did not attempt to place Hers-

Historians Kenneth Janken and Robert L. Harris Jr. have criticized

Despite these valuable works, they do not add up to a fully integrated

She remembered gasping with shock

In fact, much of Herskovitss work was revolutionary.

While intellectuals during the Victorian age stressed the [imper-

Coming of age during this period of social transition, Herskovitss

The son of Jewish immigrantshis father was born in 1853 in

During Melvilles childhood, the Herskovits family lived

While Herskovitss father, Herman, a clothing merchant, provided for

While Charlottewho later attended the Cin-

Herskovitss early devotion to music was matched by his love of books.

For his ninth birthday, at a party with sixty children, Melville

Henriettas poor health due to tuberculosis induced the family to

Growing up in an assimilated Jewish family in predominantly Protes-

This attempt to minimize his own cultural dierences was

Of his own identity, he insisted that neither in

It is important to note that

Nonetheless, Herskovitss attempts to minimize the signicance of his

During his rabbinical study, Herskovits experienced a cri-

After attending the University of Cincinnati and Hebrew Union Col-

Upon his return to the United States, Herskovits transferred to the

In addition to his history

In Chicago Herskovits embraced radical politics, self-reliance, and the

Reecting his leftist politics in

During Herskovitss college years, Jews faced increasing anti-Semi-

In this climate of rising bigotry, Herskovits directly confronted anti-

Upon graduating from the University of Chicago, Herskovits moved

Lewis satirized middle-class conformity and consumerism in Bab-

In New York Herskovits joined a veritable modernist crusade to over-

Liberation and rebellion were in the

Initially, Herskovits studied at the New School for Social Research

Disaected by conservative values that supported laissez-faire eco-

By now a self-described political leftist, Hersko-

Meanwhile, he briey joined the Industrial Workers of the

Herskovitss cohort was inuenced by a number of revolutionary

During this period Herskovits befriended a group of like-minded in-

In New York the

Following the completion of his M.A. degree, Herskovits pursued the

Herskovitss shift in disciplines paralleled that of many

Disillusioned with industrial society,

Boas, who trained most of the inuential American cultural anthro-

They also endorsed the

Similarly, Boas rejected the idea

According to Boass culture conceptwhich replaced the race con-

Prior to the emergence of Boas and other modernists, scientic

Dening a race as a large segment of humanity that shared similar

During the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries scientists con-