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The Pan-African Congresses are a series of congresses founded in Pan-Africanism which have been held periodically in multiple countries since the early 1900s. The congresses have their roots in the First Pan-African Conference which was convened in 1900 in London by Henry Sylvester Williams. W.E.B. Du Bois would play a role in organizing some of the later congresses.[1]
The Fifth Pan-African Congress, held in 1945, is noted as a particularly impactful congress. Held after World War II, in which the colonial powers had mobilized African labor and resources to fight, yet Africa remained colonized while Europeans preached about liberation in Europe, was a moment in which the contradictions of the colonialist, imperialist order were sharply exposed. As described in an article in Peoples Dispatch: "The Fifth Pan-African Congress in Manchester was different. [...] For the first time, workers, trade unionists, and freedom fighters from colonized Africa sat at the same table with radical intellectuals from the Caribbean and the diaspora. The tone was militant, the agenda revolutionary."[1] Attendees of the Fifth Pan-African Congress included figures such as Kwame Nkrumah, George Padmore, C.L.R. James, Jomo Kenyatta, Amy Ashwood Garvey, and I.T.A. Wallace-Johnson, among others.[1]
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References[edit | edit source]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Nicholas Mwangi (2025-10-25). "80 years since 1945 Manchester Congress and the need for revolutionary Pan-Africanism" Peoples Dispatch.