THE GLOBAL AFRICAN COMMUNITY
H I S T O R Y N O T E S
WILLIAM HENRY FERRIS: THE AFRICAN ABROAD
DEDICATED TO JAKE PATTON BEASON
AND DR. ANDERSON THOMPSON
William Henry Ferris (1873-1941) was one of the many scholars, churchmen and activists, now obscure, whose life and deeds deserve far more scrutiny and recognition. Born July 20, in New Haven, Connecticut, William Henry Ferris was the son of David H. and Sarah Ann Ferris. After graduating from Hillhouse High School in New Haven, he entered Yale University and earned the Bachelor of Arts degree in 1895. In the words of Randall K. Burkett:
"He received master's degrees from both Yale and Harvard, and also took courses for two years at Harvard Divinity School. After two brief stints as a teacher--first in Florida and then in North Carolina--he accepted the pastorate of a Congregational church in Wilmington, North Carolina. Five years later, in 1910, he moved to the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church and took charge of mission churches in Lowell and Salem, Massachusetts."
A considerable allotment of Ferris's time during the period from 1905 to 1912 was devoted to travel, research and writing in preparation for publication of his magnum opus--The African Abroad, Or, His Evolution in Western Civilization, Tracing His Development Under Caucasian Milieu--a controversial and yet highly popular book published by Tuttle, Morehouse and Taylor Press in two volumes in 1913.
In October 1913 The African Abroad was reviewed in the African Times and Orient Review. According to Duse Mohamed Ali, "This book is yet another reinforced corner-stone in the world-Afric effort to rescue from premeditated concealment or age-long ignorance the pre-Egyptian history of the African."
Ferris rose to become assistant president general of Marcus Garvey's Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League. In 1919 he became literary editor of Garvey's Negro World. According to Carter G. Woodson:
"On this staff Ferris served a number of years satisfactorily as literary editor and helped to make this journal the most widely circulated Negro newspaper which has been published in the Western Hemisphere. At one time it had a circulation of two hundred thousand copies."
Before joining Garvey Ferris worked with William Monroe Trotter and the Boston Guardian newspaper, W.E.B. DuBois and the Niagara Movement, and John Edward Bruce as a member of the American Negro Academy and the Negro Society for Historical Research. As of 1922, Ferris was working on a projected volume which he hoped to call The African in Western Lands.
SOURCES:
The African Abroad, by William Henry Ferris
Black Redemption, by Randall K. Burkett
African Fundamentalism, by Tony Martin
Copyright © 1998 Runoko Rashidi. All rights reserved.
Revised: November 04, 2000.
Webpage design: Kenneth Ritchards