Encyclopedia of American Studies

Rather than a single black intellectual tradition, there are more properly black intellectual traditions. These are intellectual movements that have developed in the modern world out of the formation of black people, who in turn were formed from a diverse set of ethnic groups. Some emerged from the many African ethnicities brought under the rubric of "black." Others are from varieties of black-designated groups in southern Asia and the Pacific. The most dominant representatives have become the "black Atlantic" traditions, although in ancient times through the Middle Ages, there were black Mediterranean and other black traditions along the eastern coasts of Africa, as attested to by the Islamic thought of the Moors (such as Ibn Rushd and Ibn Khaldun) on one hand, and the Abyssinians (Zera Yacob and Walda Heywat) on the other. This article will focus on the black Atlantic traditions.