Council on African Affairs

The Council on African Affairs (CAA), until 1941 called the International Committee on African Affairs (ICAA), was a volunteer organization founded in 1937 in the United States. It emerged as the leading voice of anti-colonialism and Pan-Africanism in the United States and internationally before Cold War anti-communism and liberalism created too much strife among members; the organization split in 1955. The split was also precipitated by co-founder Max Yergan's abandonment of left-wing politics; he advocated colonial rule in Africa. Founding members Paul Robeson served as the CAA's chairman for most of its existence while W. E. B. Du Bois served as vice-chair and head of the Africa Aid Committee. Activist Max Yergan, who taught at the City College of New York (until 1941), was its first Executive Director. Alphaeus Hunton, an assistant professor in the English and Romance Languages department at Howard University, joined the CAA in 1943 as its Educational Director. He was appointed as its Executive Director, after Yergan resigned. Hunton was also the editor of the CAA publication, New Africa. He was the primary force behind much of the CAA's activity and vision through the early 1950s. Other pioneer members of the ICAA were Raymond Leslie Buell and Ralph J. Bunche. The CAA, from its beginning in 1941, received the support of mainstream activists and liberal intellectuals such as anthropologist Franz Boas, historian E. Franklin Frazier, record producer John H. Hammond, Mary McLeod Bethune (from the National Youth Administration) and Rayford Logan.