American Negro Academy

The American Negro Academy (ANA) was founded on March 8, 1897 in Washington, D.C. The academy was the brainchild of the Reverend Alexander Crummell (1819–1898), who was the son of an African prince, as well as an intellectual and an Episcopal priest. Crummell had met with four men on December 18 of the previous year to discuss his idea of an association of [Page 85]the most eminent African men with the purpose of raising the consciousness of African people. The four men were John Wesley Cromwell (1846–1927) and Walter B. Hayson (1822–1905), two Washington public school teachers; Paul Laurence Dunbar (1872–1906), a poet; and Kelly Miller (1863–1939), a mathematics professor at Howard University. Subsequently, Crummell increased his effort to put together a group to protect, promote, and advance the African people by calling together 18 of the greatest African minds of his day to meet at Lincoln Memorial Church.

By the end of the first meeting, the men had set the organization into motion. The membership was to be 40 elected men who had distinguished themselves as college graduates, professors, artists, or writers. The group, under the leadership of Crummell, adopted and signed a constitution and named the first national scholarly organization dedicated to the advancement of African culture the American Negro Academy. The number of elected men was soon increased to 50. Their mission was to defend Africans against vicious assaults, foster higher education, publish scholarly works, and help cultivate intellectual taste by promoting original literature, art, and science.

The American Negro Academy was the first organization, and the only organization in America at that time, to gather black scholars and artists from all over the world. It was the first learned society created by black Americans. During its lifetime, the academy published more than 20 scholarly papers written by some of the finest minds of the black community, such as Alexander Crummell's “Civilization: The Primal Need of the Race and Attitude of the American Mind Toward Negro Intellect,” J. L. Lowe's “Disfranchisement of the Negro,” and William Pickens's “The Status of the Free Negro from 1860–1970.”

The contributors to the American Negro Academy included W.E.B. Du Bois, Carter G. Woodson, Alain Locke, John Mercer Langston, and Francis J. Grimke. These scholars were interested in advancing the work of the race in such a way as to defy the racist categorization leveled against African people. The academy worked hard to strengthen the intellectual life of the black community, improve the quality of black leadership, and protect the black community from the effects of racism. The American Negro Academy lasted into the 1920s. By the end of its lifetime, the academy had reached most of its goals by educating African Americans and providing an outlet for the black intelligentsia to publish their works. However, it did not quite reach the masses of black people the way it had hoped, because many black people were so preoccupied with the daily battles of life that they hardly took notice of the academy.

In 1924, Crummell's ANA ceased to exist. Decades later, in 1968, poets, historians, artists, and scholars took up the banner of the ANA—including Julian “Cannonball” Adderley, Margaret Walker, James Baldwin, Harry Belafonte, John Hope Franklin, Ossie and Ruby D. Davis, Nina Simone, and Lerone Bennett, Jr. In March of 1969, after a series of meetings, these dedicated individuals founded the Black Academy of Arts and Letters (BAAL) to carry on the work of the American Negro Academy.

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