SOURCE: “African Dreams Deferred,” in The Search for a Black Nationality: Black Emigration and Colonization 1787‐1863, University of Illinois Press, 1975, pp. 250‐63.

In the following excerpt, Miller explores Delany's plans to facilitate emigration of American Blacks to the African country of Yoruba.

Although neither Martin R. Delany nor any other black emigrationist would explore West Africa again during the 1860's, the African emigration movement did not simply disappear once Delany returned to North America and the African Civilization Society's E. P. Rogers died in Liberia. Rather, both Delany and the Civilization Society's Henry Highland Garnet still hoped that British and American philanthropy might underwrite the costs of emigration of American and Canadian blacks to West Africa. Although unsuccessful in their efforts, both men labored throughout 1861 and into early 1862 to fulfill the dreams they had been nurturing for several years. However, developments both in West Africa and in the United States...