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Max Yergan in South Africa: From Evangelical Pan-Africanist to Revolutionary Socialist

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 May 2014

David H. Anthony III
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Max Yergan was one of the most controversial foreign-born leaders ever associated with modern South Africa. From 1921 to 1936 he was the only black representative of the North American branch of the Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA) permitted to work in the South African field. Yergan's South African service radicalized the young missionary, culminating in his resignation from the YMCA in 1936. The next decade of Yergan's life was devoted to left-wing activism. In 1948 however, ostensibly disillusioned by the onset of the Cold War, Yergan abandoned leftist activism in favor of ultraconservativism.

South Africa loomed large in each of these transformations. This article is concerned with Yergan's shift from evangelical Protestantism to revolutionary socialism, highlighting the critical role that residence in South Africa played in his early political evolution. It also brings into focus the broader subject of Afro-American linkages with Black South Africans, making special reference to the advent and larger significance of Black American YMCA work among Africans.

Max Yergan was born in Raleigh, North Carolina, in 1892, one of several sons of a literate black seamstress named Lizzie Yeargan. While much of his early life is obscure, he seems to have been influenced by the philosophical trends of African Redemption and Ethiopianism which swept many religious communities within the African Diaspora during the last quarter of the 19th century.

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Articles
Information
African Studies Review , Volume 34 , Issue 2 , September 1991 , pp. 27 - 55
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 1991

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