​EMPOWERING THE AFRICAN DIASPORA

The end of the 19th century showed effervescent modernism in technical, medical, philosophical, industrial, architectural, lifestyle and political change and expansion against the backdrop of newly freed slaves and the division of Africa huge territories between imperial European states. Blacks, until then separated could run into each other in their travels and discover they were not alone, isolated and helpless.

Such was the case for two significant figures in the history of modern Black empowerment: Henry Sylvester Williams, a Trinidadian then in London working to qualify as a barrister and Marcus Garvey, a Jamaican who moved for a time to England. Both encountered witnesses to and victims of racist brutalities leading them to organise, each in his corner, organisations for the rescue of the African peoples.

H. S. Williams and others of which two Haitians Bénito Sylvain, a journalist by profession and Anténor Firmin an anthropologist, collaborated to found the African Association in 1897 in the view to investigate and publicise the situation of Blacks in the British Empire later extended to the treatment of ‘native races’ under European and American rule. After the first conference in 1900, between the 23rd and 25th of July, the African Association changed to Pan-African Association (PAA) in order to encompass the total African Diaspora of which objectives were set:

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1. to secure civil and political rights for Africans and their descendants throughout the world;

2. to encourage friendly relations between the Caucasian and African races;

3. to encourage African people everywhere in educational, industrial and commercial enterprise;

4. ​to approach Governments and influence legislation in the interests of the black races:

5. and to ameliorate the condition of the oppressed negro in all parts of the world.

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M. Garvey established in 1920 the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League (UNIA-ACL). ‘The Declaration of Rights of the Negro Peoples of the World’ was promulgated on August 13, 1920 during the first convention sought to uplift the black race and encouraged self-reliance and nationhood. That same month gave birth to the red, black and green flag symbol of the rallying of the African race.
 

               ​UNIA (and its regional offices) has survived however the African Union has replaced the Pan-African Association. Both have been the hope of the poor and oppressed at a time when the courts of justice exercised racial prejudice. The UNIA’s Declaration of 1920, in itself a masterwork, has had many children across the Diaspora demanding recognition, asserting its identity, highlighting racism and social exclusion whilst acknowledging a common bond with all the African communities of the world and organising themselves around intellectuals, scientists, economists, etc.

​Self-determination was the premise underpinning the founding of UNIA-ACL and PAA. They would empower their own, raise leaders to speak on behalf of its people to promote equal rights with the imperial powers. Only how easy has it been? It begs the questions, ‘What drastic economic measures can they implement against the plundering of soils and resources, exploitation of the African Diaspora, revolving debt impeding national development, restrictions and diktats imposed by the theorists of globalisation? Who hold and can hold the North accountable for yet another imperialist war, dumping of waste, pollution of waters and grounds by transnational companies? What is the value of UNIA-ACL, PAA and like organisations’ authority?’ Let’s read Dr. Motsoko Pheko of the Pan Africanist Congress of Azania and a member of the South African Parliament.

​“In August a prominent Nigerian political scientist reminded participants at the fifth Pan-African Colloquium in Ghana that the 'European Renaissance' was the foundation of slavery, colonialism and racism. Africa has nothing to gain from this decadence, which was responsible for the worst holocaust of the African people in memory. Some of these leaders have become agents of neo-liberalism and neo-colonialism, whose instrument is 'globalisation'. Globalisation is just a new form of recolonising the African continent.

​There will continue to be an ideological and intellectual crisis in the African world until Africans understand Pan-Africanism, its value and benefits, and apply it to their many problems.”

 

In 1919, W.E.B. Du Bois, an eloquent black American scholar and writer, as well as  proponent to the cause of African countries' right to self-determination who attended Trinidadian-born Henry Sylvester Williams' first Pan African congress in 1900, with the assistance of Senegalese Blaise Diagne, a well-wheeled politician, organised between the 19th and 22nd of February the second Pan-African congress in Paris.

Amidst diplomatic hostilities, together they managed to assemble 57 delegates from the Caribbean Islands, the USA and Africa, representing in all 15 countries. The resolutions they voted Du Bois, the spokeperson, would present at Versailles during the Peace Conference negotiations between the victors of WWI and Germany delegates with the aim of bringing in their polities fairer deals for the people of African origin in Africa and the former European colonies. But Du Bois was not permitted to speak.

 

Neither Wiliams, who died in 1911, nor Marcus Garvey, Jr attended any of the subsequent congress nor will they see the accomplishement of their struggles that came after WWII.

 

Not until 1956 will Paris witness another pan-african gathering, this time not called by the English-s speaking intellectuals of America but by French-speaking Africa, in the person of Senegalese Alioune Diop, founder of "Présence africaine" journal. The First Congress of Black Writers and artists (French: Premier congrès des écrivains et artistes noirs) gathering the cream of black intellectuals, historiens, poets and theologians, met in Paris in one of the oldest medieval University of Paris, Sorbonne, with the objectve to make an inventory of black cultures in the diaspora and its diversity ultimately underpinning their desire to rebuild themselves in spite of  the white man. Watch the insightful documentary on the page "Clued in" celebrating the 50th anniversary of the congress. A secong congres was held in Rome in 1959.

It is with great pleasure that the Adid has compiled a number of declarations in their original languages for your perusal.

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Internet references
Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League
Pan-African Conferences, 1900-1953: What Did ‘Pan-Africanism’ Mean?
Road to Pan-Africanism

Congrès des écrivains et artistes noirs (French)