Equality of Human Races

Antenor Firmin's "Equality of Human Races" is a pioneering work of early anthropology written in French by a Haitian who is probably anthropology's first scholar of African descent. Firmin published "De l'Egalite des Races Humaines" in paris in 1885, 20 years after the "Father of Racism", Count Arthur de Gobineau, published "Essai sur l'inegalitie des Races Humaines". De Gobineau's racist tome was translated into several languages and influenced Nazi ideology, while Firmin's work became obscure and marginal in the anthropological and scientific communities it sought to affect. "Equality of Human Races" is far more than a response to de Gobinaeau. It is a substantial work of early anthropology that presaged in the 19th century most of what became accepted anthropological science about race in the 20th century. It is also an early work of Pan-Africanism that highlighted the civilizational achievements of African cultures from ancient Egypt and the Nile Valley countries of Sudan and Ethiopia, to the first "Black" republic of Haiti, as evidence of the fundamental equality of African peoples.