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A Gifted Amateur: The Case of George Washington Ellis
Author(s) -
Williams Ver J.
Publication year - 2002
Publication title -
american anthropologist
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.51
H-Index - 85
eISSN - 1548-1433
pISSN - 0002-7294
DOI - 10.1525/aa.2002.104.2.544
Subject(s) - george (robot) , barbarism , amateur , gospel , racism , romance , history , doctrine , african american , social gospel , anthropology , race (biology) , sociology , religious studies , ethnology , gender studies , theology , art history , literature , civilization , art , philosophy , archaeology
George Washington Ellis published Negro Culture in West Africa in 1914 in response to the social gospel prophets' racist and stereotypical perspectives of West Africa and Africans. In so doing. Ellis attempted to shift the discourse from one that emphasized African barbarism to one that repudiated the idea of African inferiority. Unwittingly, however, Ellis preached a brand of romantic racialism—a benign doctrine that was commonplace in the racial discourse of African American elites at the Turn of the Century. Asa consequence, his loyalties were divided between 19th‐century ethnological science and the "new ethnology" of Franz Boas. [Keywords: George Washington Ellis, history of racism, antiracism, African American anthropology, social gospel prophets]