[44] Given this, it is disappointing that Ken Loach’s otherwise excellent documentary film, The Spirit of ‘45 (2013) did not mention the Fifth Pan-African Congress and other comparative moments of metropolitan anti-colonialist agitation. The Problem in the Caribbean This aspect of the situation was made worse by the action of the United States military authorities, who absolutely forbade marriage under any circumstances between their coloured troops and white women in England, though such marriage was permitted to women in the Northern States of the U.S.A.

How could it be otherwise when for centuries the African peoples have been victims of violence and slavery? [10] Goodwill Message from W.E.B. This large body of active workers in Africa who attended the Manchester conference symbolised a new stage of the work in England. From 15 to 21 October 1945, the fifth Pan-African Congress was held at All Saints. [3] For an excellent pioneering analysis of decolonisation, see Nigel Harris, ‘Imperialism Today’ in Nigel Harris and John Palmer (eds.) The book there­fore constantly implied that the African revolution would be similarly contingent upon the socialist revolution in Europe. As Padmore commented, ‘Ask any British colonial expert – which I have often done – why Africa is backward, he invariably replies that Africa is poor. [15], In 1927, The Fourth Pan-African Congress was held in New York City and adopted resolutions that were similar to the Third Pan-African Congress meetings. As for the Soviet Union’s apparent anti-colonialism by the time of the Cold War, the brutal crushing of the Hungarian Revolution in 1956 suggests that it was at best useful propagandist rhetoric in the service of its own bid for global hegemony. When during the war he was able to run a successful restaurant business in Manchester, he devoted most of the money he made into furthering the interests of the work and helping to finance the fifth Pan-African Conference. “What photographers need to do is encourage us to take responsibility,” says Sealy. The natives are poor and backward because the various imperial powers who own and control this vast continent have been exploiting it not in the interest of the Africans, but for the great mining companies and monopolistic trusts, cartels and syndicates.’[34], Sessions on ‘Oppression in South Africa’, ‘The East African Picture’ (which saw a lengthy speech by Jomo Kenyatta), ‘Ethiopia and the Black Republics’, and ‘The Problem in the Caribbean’ followed. The following was addressed at the meeting: Before the Congress met in London, Isaac Béton of the French Committee wrote a letter to Du Bois, telling him that the French group would not be sending delegates. 1974 6th Pan-African Congress “We believe that the future of Africans lies in the fullest utilization of our human resources instead of continued dependency on loans and gifts from abroad …if we do not control the means of survival and protection in the context of the 20th century, we will continue to be colonized.” [11] On Padmore, see Leslie James, George Padmore and Decolonisation from Below: Pan-Africanism, the Cold war and the End of Empire (Basingstoke, 2015). In London, the PAF – now joined by Kwame Nkrumah – rallied solidarity and helped organise a strike fund with WASU. 100-101. Either the British government will extend self-government in West Africa and the West Indies or face open revolt’. He said he had lived here for 45 years and intended to remain in England “to help civilise the English people, because they are not civilised”’. [20], The Fifth Congress is widely viewed by commentators as the most significant, being held just months after the end of the World War II.The War had been fought in the name of freedom, however around the globe, millions of Africans and Afro-Diaspora populations lived under European colonial rule. [9], Though Du Bois flew over to Britain from America to preside over the Fifth Pan-African Congress, and though there was also a contingent of other black American delegates as at the previous four congresses, it was the black Trinidadian George Padmore who Du Bois always acknowledged was ‘the organizing spirit’ of the congress. The Abolition of the pretension of a white minority to dominate a black majority in Kenya, Kwame Nkrumah would later become the first Prime Minister and President of, Jamaican Pan-Africanist, politician, and diplomat, Nigerian Pan-Africanist, lawyer, diplomat, politician and humanitarian, South African born novelist, journalist, and political commentator. 62-74. 43, 86. Donated by Robin Grinter. Why the Congress was held in Manchester – rather than say London – was because two West Indians in the PAF, Ras T. Makonnen and Dr Peter Milliard had established strong community roots there. Kwame Nkrumah advocated for revolutionary methods of seizing power as essential to Independence. That fact was of no interest to the American authorities, who had decided that the children should be illegitimate and a burden on the British taxpayer. Special thanks are due to the ladies of the Entertainment Committee, who unsparingly devoted themselves to making the delegates as comfortable as possible during their week’s stay in Manchester. 163-64. [26] Adi, ‘Pan-Africanism in Britain’, pp. Historian Simon Katzenellenboggen comments that “Unlike the four earlier congresses, the fifth one involved people from the African Diaspora; not just Africans, but Afro-Caribbeans and Afro-Americans." Be on the lookout for your Britannica newsletter to get trusted stories delivered right to your inbox. This context for the images, just weeks after the end of the war, is potent: existing in a bubble of time between European colonialism and the destabilised regimes of the Cold War.

Most important of all, he was the leading spirit in the formation of the Coloured Workers’ Association of Great Britain. Leeds African Studies Bulletin No. The relation of forces had changed and changed decisively to the increase in energy and audacity of any colonial people determined to revolt. Seventy years have passed since the Fifth Pan-African Congress, an event which, in hindsight, was one of the most significant happenings of African organisation ever to have occurred in Britain, perhaps the world. Six audio interviews and transcripts collected in 1995, to mark the 50th anniversary of the Pan-African Congress held in Manchester in 1945. Courage, vision, planning and fearless work can turn this possibility into reality. ), George Padmore: Pan-African Revolutionary (Kingston, 2009), pp. Du Bois and Ida Gibbs Hunt, wife of US Consul William Henry Hunt, who was at that time working at the American consulate in Saint-Étienne, France. Their task was competently performed in difficult circumstances of paucity of accommodation and rationing. Historian Marika Sherwood writes in her book Manchester and the 1945 Pan-African Congress that “In 1945, at the end of World War II, some 700 million people around the world lived under imperial rule. By 1945, the veteran campaigner Du Bois himself was identifying more and more with socialism and Communism. For two years and a half he worked and lived in the very closest association with Padmore.

Dr Peter Milliard noted that he had lived in Manchester for 21 years and he praised the city for its high liberalism and rich traditions of working class internationalism going back to the American Civil War, when cotton workers went against their own material interests to side with the North in the struggle against slavery. Africa, however, was represented only sparsely by delegates from the Gold Coast, Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Nigeria. Yet Amy Ashwood Garvey drew attention to a progressive moment of ten thousand black women in the schools of Jamaica, while women were joining the trade union movement in the postal service. [17] The Congress took place at the Chorlton-upon-Medlock Town Hall on the outskirts of the city centre. 'The Colour Problem in Britain', Including issues of unemployment amongst black youth; 'Imperialism in North and West Africa'. ), The Hidden 1970s: Histories of Radicalism (New Brunswick, 2010), pp. [8] Their main task was petitioning the Versailles Peace Conference held in Paris at that time. The Congress in Perspective – By Peter Abrahams

On the other hand, if a world of ultimate democracy, reaching across the colour line and abolishing race discrimination, can only be accomplished by the method laid down by Karl Marx, then that method deserves to be triumphant no matter what we think or do’.

[10] As W. E. B. John McNair, secretary of the Independent Labour Party also addressed the Congress. With fewer African American participants, delegates consisted mainly of an emerging crop of African intellectual and political leaders, who soon won fame, notoriety, and power in their various colonized countries.”[24]. Weeks after the fall of Nazi Germany, African leaders gathered in a Manchester town hall in the name of freedom and self-determination. Faculty of Engineering and Physical Sciences, Leeds African Studies Bulletin No. )", "Du Bois, The Crisis and Images of Africa and the Diaspora", George Padmore: Pan-African Revolutionary, "1945 Pan-African Congress in Manchester", "Remembering the Fifth Pan-African Congress", "Details on the Fifth Pan-African Congress and Pan-African Film Installation (London)", "It began in Manchester — Manchester and The Pan-African Movement", "The Pan-African Congress in black and white", "Pan-African Congress 1945 and 1995 Archive - Archives Hub", "Black Chronicles III: The Fifth Pan-African Congress", "Remembering the Fifth Pan-African Congress" - Christian Høgsbjerg, "The 'Key Link' – some London notes towards the 7th Pan-African Congress", W. E. B. The development of Africa should be for the benefit of Africans and not merely for the profits of Europeans. This notion of accountability of the collective, expounded in French philosopher Emmanuel Lévinas’ post-war writing, is a strong influence on his curation.

Financial Statement of Fifth Pan-African Congress [omitted]. At the end of July 1945, Clement Attlee’s Labour government were elected in Britain, part of what has been hailed as the optimistic and collectivist ‘spirit of 45’ in Britain after the war, a spirit also embraced by Pan-Africanists in Britain. 'Oppression in South Africa'. The delegates were predominantly representatives of the Anglophone working people of African and Caribbean colonies, though others like the South Asian activists Surat Alley and T. Subasingha also attended. While post-war Europe reckoned with existential crisis, Africa and Africans were looking forward; contemplating a future where they held their destiny in their own hands.