African Americans Who Teach German Language and Culture
2000; Issue: 30 Linguagem: Inglês
10.2307/2679113
ISSN2326-6023
Autores Tópico(s)Linguistic Education and Pedagogy
ResumoIT MAY SEEM a bit odd and disconcerting to hear that African Americans have for quite some time demon? strated an affinity for, and even an attraction to, German culture. But long before the rise of German fas? cism, two world wars, and a century of stereotyping Germans as brutal, racist, and warmongering Huns, an edu? cated elite among African Americans had felt a special kin? ship with Germany and many of her heroes. According to Leroy T. Hopkins, a black Harvard-trained professor of German at Millersville University in Pennsylvania, the first significant intermingling of the two groups occurred during the American Revolution when runaway slaves and freedmen, lured by the prospect of a better life, joined the British army and fought against the colonists alongside Hessian mercenaries. When the war ended, a handful of these disap? pointed black troops followed their comrades back to Kassel in Germany. In two articles written in 1992 and 1996 Hopkins provided evidence that, prior to World War I, African-American intellectuals maintained a vision of Germany as a spiritual fatherland. In fact, the high regard liberal German thinkers generally enjoyed in this country caught the imagination of notables like NAACP cofounder W.E.B. Du Bois and Rhodes Scholar Alain LeRoy Locke who had both studied at the University of Berlin before obtaining their doctorates at Harvard. Other historians have confirmed Du Bois' preference for things German, particularly the extent to which he was influenced by the philosopher-poet Johann Gottfried von Herder and the composer Richard Wagner. Yet virtually ignored by scholars concerned with German cultural influences on black leaders are a number of other
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