Case Study: Pan-Africanism [Discussion Class and Response Paper]

1. Case Study:Pan-Africanism[DiscussionClassandResponse Paper] February 15-17

2. Pan-Africanism Pan-Africanism: • West Africans who studied in Europe were introduced to ‘Pan-Africanism’ [“Negritude” in Paris] - leaders of Anglo-based movement born in the Americas: Edward BlydenMarcus Garvey W.E.B. Du Bois

3. Pan-Africanism Pan-Africanism: -at first an ideal tied to those who by their skin colour shared descent from Africa - Caribbean-born, Liberian educator Edward Blyden: late 19th century wrote about achievements of Africans - credited with first using term ‘Pan-African’.

4. Pan-Africanism Ideas reflected in first Pan-Africanist congress 1900: - focused on unity of blacks all over the world - mostly defined as ‘the British world’: British colonies, Britain itself and the need to work to improve their conditions - but also ‘Addressed Nations of the World’:

5. Pan-Africanism ‘Address to the Nations of the World’: 1st Pan-Africanist Conference (London, 1900): Let the German Empire, and the French Republic, true to their great past, remember that the true worth of colonies lies in their prosperity and progress, and that justice, impartial alike to black and white, is the first element of prosperity.

6. Pan-Africanism Let the nations of the World respect the integrity and independence of the first Negro States of Abyssinia, Liberia, Haiti, and the rest, and let the inhabitants of these States, the independent tribes of Africa, the Negroes of the West Indies and America, and the black subjects of all nations take courage, strive ceaselessly, and fight bravely, that they may prove to the world their incontestable right to be counted among the great brotherhood of Mankind. …

7. Pan-Africanism Let the Congo Free State become a great central Negro State of the world, and let its prosperity be counted not simply in cash and commerce, but in the happiness and true advancement of its black people.

8. Pan-Africanism During WWI: - focus shifted to conditions of Blacks in the US – Afro-Americans. - war and outcome drew attention to conditions of blacks in the US and Africa - concerns articulated by co-founder of National Association for the Advancement of Coloured Peoples (NAACP) in the US – W.E.B. Du Bois

9. Pan-Africanism NAACP: - Emphasis on need for education of Africans, those of African descent (US, Caribbean) - but also began to speak to the need for Africans to have more of a say in their own affairs. W.E.B. Du Bois 1918

10. Pan-Africanism Universal Negro Improvement Association (founded 1914, Jamaica; important in Harlem, New York, 1916-17): - second ‘product’ of WWI era was Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) - founded by Marcus Garvey: promoted racial pride, economic self-sufficiency - advocated formation of independent black nation in Africa: “Back to Africa”

11. Pan-Africanism NAACP and UNIA: -represented different goals and values: reflected main ‘tensions’ within Pan-Africanism itself - Du Bois urged Afro-Americans to better themselves within American society – to push for ‘improvements’ through their own education and political involvement -Garvey wanted Afro-Americans to return (literally) to their African roots, effectively rejecting American ‘white’ society and creating their own

12. Pan-Africanism The Universal Improvement Association represents the hopes and aspirations of the awakened Negro. Our desire is for a place in the world, not to disturb the tranquility of other men, but to lay down our burden and rest our weary backs and feet by the banks of the Niger and sing our songs and chant our hymns to the God of Ethiopia. . ."Look to Africa for the crowning of a Black king; he shall be the Redeemer.”[Garvey, New York, 1924] • [listen to “Garvey in Africa” Pod-cast, ‘Resources’]

13. Pan-Africanism Pan-Africanist Congress: - Several congresses were held in the 1920s, in different parts of Europe and in 1927, in New York. - during 1920s Garvey’s ideas – appealing to the poor, the Blacks of the New York ghetto for example, began to acquire some power - helped shift attention back to Africans and Africa’s colonial situation

14. Pan-Africanism Garvey’s Pan-Africanism: - saw an ‘Africa’ that existed in and through its people. - Whereas earlier ideas saw Africa articulated through ‘blackness’ wherever blacks lived. . . - back-to-Africa encouraged blacks to think of themselves as ‘African: to strive, as an ideal to bring their ‘African-ness’ back to the continent.

15. Pan-Africanism By mid-1920s:- Africans had decided that any plan for African progress had to be decided by Africans and directed from Africa • turned to ideas about nationalism and national unity (see Lecture Feb. 13)

16. Pan-Africanism - repatriation had little real impact -but Garvey’s ideas resonated with new generation of West Africans studying in London, UK - he became the inspiration for a more politically aggressive, educated young elite in the 1930s.

17. Pan-Africanism West African Students Union, London UK: “The WASU acted as a training ground for future West African politicians and from the late 1930s established branches and distributed its journal throughout West Africa and internationally. Through its branches and individual links it was a major influence on the anti-colonial movements in Nigeria, the Gold Coast, Sierra Leone and Gambia. Its members included individuals who would play key roles in the anti-colonial struggles in West Africa, not least Kwame Nkrumah who led the Gold Coast/Ghana to independence in 1957.” [See WASU website in ‘Add’l Rdgs’]

18. Pan-Africanism Pan-Africanism as ‘Cultural Movement’: - in US: influenced by Harlem Renaissance - brought public attention to Black writing (including Du Bois), music, “celebration” of Black achievement. - In French world, centred in Paris, articulated as ‘Negritude’ – [see previous lecture, Senghor]

19. Pan-Africanism From Harlem to Africa: - late 1930s: black artists in US took up “cause of their ‘brothers and sisters’ in Africa” - Pan-Africanist gaze once again shifted to colonialism, joining voices of new politically active generation of Africans. - Kwame Nkrumah: studied in US where cultural, political Pan-Africanism was voiced - the Pan-Africanism Nkrumah would nurture, returned with him from the US to Africa.

20. Pan-Africanism Pan-Africanism: could it be all things to all people – all of the time? - able to ‘adapt’ to needs, visions of its leaders and followers over time and place - gave ‘idea’ longevity: allowed for slippage between notions of ‘black’, ‘African’ and ‘Africa’ - but also its weakness: epitomized by ‘split’ between Du Bois and Garvey that marked American Pan-Africanists (for example) [more on this history, especially as it related to Somalia, in ‘Resources’ (unpublished paper), Mcdougall]

21. Pan-Africanism Pan-Africanism: 1940s - in the 1940s: attention turned from ‘blacks’ and their conditions (generally) to ‘Africans’ and their goals of decolonization (in particular). - manifested in 5th Pan-African Congress, Manchester 1945 [focus of Case Study Discussion]

22. Pan-Africanism At the Fifth Pan-African Congress (Manchester, 1945): - pronounced that armed struggle could be justified to overthrow colonialism - Kwame Nkrumah was a leader at this Congress. [see 1963 Reprint of Documents from 5th PAC‘, complete with ‘Messages of Good Will’ from leaders like Nandi Azikiwe (below) and Jomo Kenyatta. ‘Case Study Discussion: Readings’]

23. Pan-Africanism Fifth Pan-African Congress (Manchester, 1945):

24. Pan-Africanism Post 1945: - earlier ‘ambivalences’ within movement remained as Nkrumah and others attempted to use Pan-Africanism as means to realization of “African Unity - Du Bois, for example, was solicited to what had become Ghana in early 1960s to write an Encyclopedia of African Civilization (understood to be ‘Black Africa’) to support this political framework (died in Ghana,1963) - but not without conflict with Nkrumah whose ‘Africa’ included North Africa and Egypt!

25. Pan-Africanism Post 1945: • - anti-colonial stance, rhetoric of 5th Pan African conference (1945) also drew on Socialist ideology • - reinforced equation: ‘Capitalism = Colonialism = the West’ [Case Study Discussion] • - by 1950s, influenced almost ALL Nationalist Leaders throughout continent

26. Pan-Africanism Leaders/Voices of Nationalism: - Jomo Kenyatta (Kenya) [last lecture] - Julius Nyerere (Tanzania) - Kenneth Kaunda (Zambia) - Hailie Selassie (Ethiopia) - Albert Luthuli (South Africa) - NnamdiAzikiwe (Nigeria) [last lecture]

27. Pan-Africanism Leaders/Voices of Nationalism: - and Kwame Nkrumah (Gold Coast/Ghana) - From the late 1940s, through 1950s: Nkrumah argued for independent West African Federation. . . “The first step towards a United States of Africa”

28. Pan-Africanism After Pan-Africanis Congress 1945: - Nkrumah was main spokesperson for ‘African’ Pan-Africanism • - organized Conference of Independent States (“All Africa” Conference) in newly independent Ghana (capital Accra) 1958 • - (reflecting resolutions of Manchester 1945): ALL colonies had transcend colonial boundaries and work to unite continent of Africa

29. Pan-Africanism “No country can truly be free until ALL of Africa’s colonies have freedom” [para-phrased from Nkrumah’s famous Independence Speech, 1957]