African Times and Orient Review (cover)
*On this date in 1912, we celebrate the publication of African Times and Orient Review. This was a pan-Asian and Pan-African journal launched by Duse Mohamed Ali, a Black British actor and journalist, with the help of John Eldred Taylor.
The first Universal Races Congress, held in 1911 in the United Kingdom, inspired it and wrote of the global intersectionality of nonwhite communities. That gathering, convened in the Metropolis of the Anglo-Saxon world, clearly demonstrated that there was ample need for a Pan-Oriental Pan-African journal that would lay the aims, desires, and intentions of the Black, Brown, and Yellow races within and without the empire at Caesar's throne. The first issue appeared as a "monthly devoted to the interests of the colored races of the world."
The review appeared monthly from July to December 1913 and weekly from 24 March to 18 August 1914. Contributors included Marcus Garvey, who published in the review on his trips to Britain, Shaikh M.H. Kidwai of Gadia, and Kobina Sekyi. At the outbreak of World War I, Britain banned the journal in India and its colonies in Africa to reduce unrest.
The publication was stopped for two years. From January 1917 to October 1918, the journal restarted as a monthly, but publication stopped until January 1920. It was revived as Africa and Orient Review, published from its offices at 158 Fleet Street, London, until December 1920.
