Pan-Africanism

1960s: Days of Rage

January 29

"Pan-Africanism is a worldwide movement that aims to encourage and strengthen bonds of solidarity between all indigenous and diasporas of African ancestry. Based on a common goal dating back to the Atlantic slave trade, the movement extends beyond continental Africans with a substantial support base among the African diaspora in the Americas and Europe. Pan-Africanism can be said to have its origins in the struggles of the African people against enslavement and colonization and this struggle may be traced back to the first resistance on slave ships—rebellions and suicides—through the constant plantation and colonial uprisings and the 'Back to Africa' movements of the 19th century. Based on the belief that unity is vital to economic, social, and political progress, it aims to 'unify and uplift' people of African ancestry. At its core, pan-Africanism is a belief that 'African people, both on the continent and in the diaspora, share not merely a common history, but a common destiny.' Pan-Africanist intellectual, cultural, and political movements tend to view all Africans and descendants of Africans as belonging to a single 'race' or otherwise sharing cultural unity. Pan-Africanism posits a sense of a shared historical fate for Africans in the Americas, the West Indies, and on the continent, itself centered on the Atlantic trade in slaves, African slavery, and European imperialism. Pan-African thought influenced the establishment of the Organisation of African Unity (since succeeded by the African Union) in 1963. ... Pan-Africanism stresses the need for 'collective self-reliance'. Pan-Africanism exists as a governmental and grassroots objective. Pan-African advocates include leaders such as Toussaint Louverture, Jean-Jacques Dessalines, Henri Christophe, François Duvalier, Aimé Césaire, Haile Selassie, Edward Wilmot Blyden, Nnamdi Azikiwe, Patrice Lumumba, Julius Nyerere, Robert Sobukwe, Ahmed Sékou Touré, Kwame Nkrumah, King Sobhuza II, Robert Mugabe, Thomas Sankara, Kwame Ture, Dr. John Pombe Magufuli, Muammar Gaddafi, Walter Rodney, Yoweri Kaguta Museveni, grassroots organizers such as Joseph Robert Love, Marcus Garvey, and Malcolm X, academics such as W. E. B. Du Bois, Anténor Firmin and others in the diaspora. ... As a philosophy, pan-Africanism represents the aggregation of the historical, cultural, spiritual, artistic, scientific, and philosophical legacies of Africans from past times to the present. Pan-Africanism as an ethical system traces its origins from ancient times, and promotes values that are the product of the African civilisations and the struggles against slavery, racism, colonialism, and neocolonialism. ..."
Wikipedia
The Nation: A Fuller Freedom - The lost promise of Pan-Africanism.
From Black Power to Pan-Africanism: Remembering Kwame Ture
Pan-Africanism: 120 Years After the First PAC, By Adeoye O. Akinola