Julius Nyerere was one of the greatest African thinkers and leaders of the twentieth century, but until now, no one has looked at how his time in the African Association (AA), before he left for Europe, connected him to a whole world of black thought and shaped his intellectual biography. After demonstrating the lessons Nyerere learned about African unity from the AA and figures like James Aggrey, it will demonstrate how he remolded and used these ideas, and how the strands of both practical pan-Africanism and Ethiopianist-inspired redemptive pan-Africanism can be seen throughout his career. It explores how his ideas of umoja shaped both domestic and international policies in postcolonial Tanzania including the relationship between religion and politics. It then examines how Nyerere wrestled with ideas of African identity, unity, and Africanness (Uarikfa) and highlights the inherent tensions between projects of territorial nationalism and political pan-Africanisms such as African nationalism.

The introduction engages scholarly debates around the topics of Tanzanian nationalism, African identity, pan-Africanism, and global intellectual history to indicate its contributions to those fields. It introduces the main question: How did an African identity come to have any personal or political purchase in East Africa in the twentieth century? The main case study focuses on the African Association (AA), a politically minded pan-African group with ideational connections to several streams of black thought. The members who chose this group, which promoted an African identity, usually did so for two reasons. They were either inspired by the redemptive pan-Africanism of some of its visionary leaders who engaged with the ideas of Ethiopianism surrounding Africa’s future and past and/or they were drawn to the strand of practical pan-Africanism cultivated by the leadership of the AA who sought to build African unity and open chapters all throughout the continent and even the globe.