100 years ago, the first Pan-African Congress met in Paris. The demands: freedom for the African colonies, and a greater voice for black people in the world. An idea was born, the Africa today characterizes.
W. E. B. Du Bois in a speech in 1949
The world falter, W. E. B. Du Bois feel it clearly: in November 1918, Germany lost the first world war. The Empire’s history. In Versailles, a peace Treaty should be negotiated. “It would be a shame for the 200 million black people in the world, if they stayed in this huge Transformation of the world without a voice and without representation,” he writes.
The Americans, Du Bois has an ambitious Plan that even some of the companions, shaking the head: a gathering of black people from Africa, the USA and other regions of the world set up in the centre of Paris, the receivables and the participants of the peace negotiations are presented. “Du Bois wanted to make sure an African presence in the new world order of the post-war period,” says Mamadou Diouf, Professor of African studies at Columbia University in New York, DW.
Because shortly after the war, it is clear that the German colonial is rich in Africa before the end. “Du Bois was relatively convinced early on that the European and North American politicians would not release the colonies to independence. But he has at least tried to take advantage of this Situation to say: We must act in concrete improvements for the societies living in these colonies”, says Andreas Eckert, Professor of African history at the Humboldt University in Berlin, in the DW-Interview.
Without the Initiative of Blaise Diagne, the Congress would not have been possible
Du Bois’s. A name as a philosopher, writer and fighter for the rights of black people has he done already. Now he’s begging for money, to write to potential participants, seeking supporters. Not everyone is thrilled. In Washington, he is trying to gain access to the U.S. Delegation at Versailles, but the Ministry of foreign Affairs in the brush-off. Blaise Diagne but not. A native of the Senegalese, and the first black Deputy in the French national Assembly, which is his most important comrade-in-arms. At the time, Diagne does not suspect that the Congress will vote for him as President.
The birth of an idea
In the end, it is a clear event. 57 participants meet in Paris, 16 of which are from the USA. The Anglo-Saxon region is facing a Meeting of the black population is suspicious. France can now boast about after all, to have the Congress. “It was difficult to bring many people to Paris. For people from the former colonies, or for Blacks from North America, it was a challenge to get passports. It is only the Initiative and the influence of Blaise Diagne is due to that the Congress could officially take place,” says Andreas Eckert.
At the end of the three days of the Congress formulated clear demands. The gradual self-administration of the African colonies, freedom of expression, the right to ownership of land and, above all, education. The negotiators at Versailles not take note of it. “The Talk of the Blacks from the USA were seditious, and judgmental” writes Harry Worley, a white American, who reports to the U.S. state Department from the Pan-African Congress. Officially, he represents Liberia’s government at the Meeting.
But now, a dream is born, the will, in the next few years, more and more circles. “By the Congress of Africans and people of African descent came together and began a global movement. This movement had no direct influence on the negotiations, but they played in the time after that, an important role,” says Mamadou Diouf of Columbia University.
The Congress is considered to be the germ cell of the African Union
More congresses – in London, New York, Manchester. The movement to put young Africans studying in Europe. Some of the participants will lead their countries to independence, including Jomo Kenyatta in Kenya and Kwame Nkrumah in Ghana. Nkrumah, it is also, in 1958 as Ghana’s Prime Minister, the first “pan-African people’s conference” co-organized in Ghana’s capital Accra. The young political Elite of the continent and reaffirms solemnly the spirit of African unity. The conferences are considered to be the nucleus of the organization of African unity, the rises in 2002 of the African Union. “So, one can say that Pan-Africanism had a very practical outcome: The creation of a multilateral organization,” said Diouf to the DW.
Return to Paris in 1919
The Pan-African Congress, the birth of the AU? Also, the Commission President, Moussa Faki evokes the spirit of Pan-Africanists: “May this anniversary the consciousness and the will to strengthen the mobilisation of strengths, which corresponds to today’s needs,” he said in his new year message for 2019.
To a time when it is not available to the organization, particularly with Ambitious projects such as a common passport or the pan-African freedom zone is progressing only slowly. Issues that would also like to acknowledge Andreas Eckert. But he sees another side: “A number of voices say that Africa’s opportunity is to overcome fragmentation and to formulate common interests. Perhaps one can say, therefore, that the spirit of Pan-Africanism and comes and goes so slowly in the corridors of the African Union.”