What are the similarities and differences between Marcus Garvey's and Du Bois' ideas of Pan-Africanism?

Answer 1

Dr. Dubois was one of our greatest scholars and intellectuals of his time. So, it is no surprise to see him grasp Pan-Africanism as the one of the greatest system of African thought in history. However, while his scholarly approach had its place, it limited the political impact of Pan-Africanism. So, we see a period between 1927 and 1945 when The Dubois brand of Pan-Africanism was rather inactive, if not irrelevant to the lives of Africans in general.

Garvey, on the other hand, was a great mass leader. No one before or since has organized such a large number of Africans around the world. And, his ideas were in close harmony to those of Booker T. Washington whereas Dubois found himself in conflict with Washington's ideas.

So, we see that Dubois had a somewhat elitist and abstract approach whereas Garvey appealed to the ordinary working class African in a very concrete manner.

But in 1945, at the Fifth Pan-African Congress, the two diverse approaches to Pan-Africanism found a merger under the leadership of Kwame Nkrumah and George Padmore. Nkrumah embodied the African intellectual and scholar while at the same time being able to draw upon his empathy for African workers and his experience as a laborer himself. Thus, Pan-Africanism became both a highly intellectual theory and a practice adopted by ordinary Africans. Thus constituted, it became the basis for the Movement for African independence and Civil Rights in the African Diaspora. The Nkrumahist approach to Pan-Africanism also upholds the need for African economic development. As such, it reclaims the values that Garvey's approach was based on such as the ideas about industrialism and business development under Booker T. Washington and the earlier founders of Pan-Africanism.