First Universal Races Congress

In 1911 the First Universal Races Congress met in London at the University of London as an early effort of Anti-racism, at which distinguished speakers from many countries for four days discussed race problems and ways to improve interracial relations.^[1] The Congress was initiated on comments of Felix Adler in 1906 and executed largely centered on the efforts of Gustav Spiller. Lord Philip Stanhope, 1st Baron Weardale was president of the Congress and William Pember Reeves served as chair of the executive committee. The Congress had 2100 members.^[2]

The original call for the Congress was published including these remarks:

To discuss, in the light of science and modern conscience, the general relations subsisting betweent he peoples of the West and those of the East, between the so-called "white" and the so-called "colored" peoples, with a view to encouraging between them a fuller understanding, the most friendly feelings, and the heartier co-operation.… The interchange of material and other wealth between the races of mankind has of late years assumed such dimensions that the old attitude of distrust and aloofness is giving way to a genuins desire for a closer acquaintanceship. Out of the his interesting situation has spring the idea of holding a Congress where the representatives of the different races might meet each other face to face, and might, in friendly rivalry, further the cause of mutual trust and respect between the Occident and Orient, between the so-called "white" peoples and the so-called "colored" peoples.^[3][4]

More than fifty countries and twenty governments sent official representatives resulting in fifty eight papers that were categorized into five groups^[3]

• Fundamental Considerations,
• General Conditions of Progress,
• Special Problems of Inter-racial Economics and Peaceful Contact between Civilizations,
• Modern Conscience in Relation to Racial Questions,
• Positive Suggestions for Promoting Inter-racial Friendliness.

An early draft of the Resolutions arrived at from the consultation were:^[3]

• To urge that the establishing of harmonious relations between the various divisions of mankind is an essential condition precedent to any serious attempt to diminish warfare and extend the practice of arbitration.
• To commend to individuals of different races coming into passing or permanent contact with one another cnduct which shall be courteous and respectful. To induce each people to study sympathetically the customs and civilizations of other peoples, since even the lowliest civilizations have much to teach, and since every civilization should be reverenced as having deep, histoic roots.
• To emphasize that difference in civilization does not, as is often supposed, necessarily connote, either inferiority or superiority.
• To study impartiality and on the broad basis the physical and social effects of race-blending and the causes which promote or hinder it.
• To request governments to compile statistics on the subject, and to discourage hasty and crude generalizations on the subject.
• To point out the irreconcialiability of the contention prevalanet among the various peoples of the world that their customs, their civilization, andtheir physique are superior to those of other peoples, and also to deprecate the loose manner in which the term "race" is popularly employed.
• To urge the paramount importance of providing in all lands a universal and efficient system of education - physical, intellectual, and moral - as ine of the principal means of promoting cordial relations within and among, all divisions of mankind.
• To respect, or to endeavour to assimulate or change, the economic, hygienic, educational and moral standards of immigrants rather that to regard them as indefensible or fixed.
• To collect records of experiments showing the successful uplifting of relatively backward people by the application of humane methods, and to urge the application of such methods universally.

Selected speakers, presenters and witnesses

Felix Adler was the official delegate from the United States National Bureau of Education (as it was then known).^[2][5] Alfred Cort Haddon was an influential British anthropologist and ethnologist. He wrote a paper for the journal Science about the first Congress.^[6] Brajendra Nath Seal, was a renowned Bengali Indian humanist philosopher, a founding proponent of Brahmo Samaj, and did work in comparative religion and on the philosophy of science. Seal addressed the Congress where he first stated the concept of group divergence, which relates to Human evolutionary genetics and effects of reproductive isolation, in a period when genetics as such were unknown, in his address on "Race Origin".^[7] Charles Eastman, a Native American writer, physician, and reformer was of Santee Sioux and Anglo-American descent; active in politics and issues on American Indian rights, he represented the American Indian at the Congress.^[8] Sarah J. Garnet accompanied her sister, Susan McKinney Steward, who addressed her paper Colored American Women to the Congress.^[9] The pioneering physician Frances Hoggan spoke.^[10] W. E. B. Du Bois observed that the Congress could make clear the state of scientific knowledge concerning the meaning of the term "race"^[11] and presented the paper "The Negro Race in the United States of America".^[12] Mary White Ovington, the ,co-founder of the NAACP attended. Mojola Agbebi, an advocate of indigenous leadership for African churches, offered a paper. William Sanders Scarborough was the official delegate from Wilberforce University, the first African-American college in the United States owned by blacks.^[13] The head of the Bahá'í Faith, `Abdu'l-Bahá had been invited to speak, but sent representatives and a letter^[14] and presentations by various Bahá'ís.^[15] Other religious speakers included Thomas William Rhys Davids, Genchi Kato and Alfred Caldecott.^[16]

After the Congress, Dusé Mohamed Ali founded the African Times and Orient Review in London.^[17] Volume 1 No 1 proclaimed that "the recent Universal Races Congress, convened in the Metropolis of the Anglo-Saxon world, clearly demonstrated that there was ample need for a Pan-Oriental, Pan-African journal in the seat of the British Empire."

References

External links

• Papers on inter-racial problems, communicated to the first Universal Races Congress (Page scans at the Internet Archive)