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From Pan-Africanism to Socialism: The Modernization of an African Liberation Ideology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 August 2021

Micah S. Tsomondo
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Extract

The concept of Pan-Africanism has been around for a long time in spite of great historical events. Beginning as the nationalist thought of more or less detribalized Africans in the New World during the era of slavery, Pan-Africanism has survived the impact of such developments as the U.S. Civil War and Reconstruction, the post-Reconstruction era, the rise and fall of the Garvey movement, European colonialism in Africa, the Russian and other socialist revolutions of the twentieth century, and the black freedom movements in Africa, the United States, and the Caribbean since 1945.

Type
Research Article
Information
African Issues , Volume 5 , Issue 4 , Winter 1975 , pp. 39 - 45
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 1975 

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References

Notes

1 On Pan-African thought from early times to the present the following are relevant sources: Ross K. Baker, ed., The Afro- American, for such items as Robert Campbell’s “Journey to my Motherland” and George B. Tindall’s “Liberian Exodus.” Also Theodore Draper, Rediscovery of Black Nationalism (New York, 1969); John Bracey et al.. Black Nationalism in America, and Howard Brotz, ed., Negro Social and Political Thought, 1850-1920 (New York, 1966). Brotz’ book contains a lot of relevant items, including Henry H. Garnet’s “African Civilization Society” (1859). Marcus Garvey, Philosophy and Opinions, ed. by Amy-Jacques Garvey (New York, 1971); Edwin Redkey, Black Exodus (New Haven, 1969).

2 Evidence of later and African borrowing from earlier Pan-Africanism can be found in Ras Makonnen’s Pan-Africanism from Within, ed. by Kenneth King (New York, 1973); Kwame Ukrumah, Autobiography (New York, 1957); Rayford W. Logan, “Historical Aspects of Pan-Africanism, 1900-1945” in Pan-Africanism Reconsidered, ed. by the American Society of African Culture (Berkeley, 1962), pp. 37-52.

3 For Nkrumah’s description of the Fifth Pan-African Congress see his Autobiography; further details can be found in George Padmore’s Pan-Africanism or Communism? (London, 1956), pp. 161-170. Emphasis added.

4 Padmore, “A Guide to Pan-African Socialism” in William H. Friedland and Carl G. Rosberg, ed., African Socialism (Stanford, 1964), pp. 223-237; Padmore’s Pan-Africanism or Communism? emphasizes his fear of communism.

5 Nkrumah, Africa Must Unite (New York, 1963); also his Revolu tionary Path (New York, 1973), pp. 222-228; and, among many others, his “Address to the Conference of the African Heads of State and Government,” 24 May 1963, pp. 233-248 of Revolutionary Path.

6 Nkrumah, “Revolutionary Warfare” in Revolutionary Path, p. 463.

7 This thesis is fully spelled out in his Africa Must Unite and in the “Address to the Heads of State and Government” of 24 May 1963.

8 On the objectives of Pan-Africanism see Ras Makonnen, Pan-Africanism from Within; Garvey, Philosophy and Opinions; Padmore, Pan-Africanism or Communism? and his “Guide to Pan-African Socialism”; also Nkrumah, Autobiography, and Revolu tionary Path, Part II; and Ndabaningi Sithole, African Nationalism (New York, 1968).

9 On the decolonization implications of Pan-Africanism, see the “Declaration to the Colonial Peoples of the World,” adopted by the Fifth Pan-African Congress in 1945, which stated “Colonial and subject peoples of the world—Unite!” in Towards Colonial Freedom (London, 1962), pp. 44-45; Nkrumah, Autobiography; Sithole, African Nationalism; George Shepherd, Politics of Pan-Africanism (New York, 1962); and Colin Legum, Pan-Africanism (New York, 1963); also Revolutionary Path, pp. 125-134.

10 In the United States, the “freedom rides” and “civil rights” marches of the 1960s were a local manifestation of the Pan-African anti-colonial movement. For more specific details, see James Geschwender, The Black Revolt (New Jersey, 1971); Stokely Carmichael, “Pan-Africanism—Land and Power” in Robert Chrisman and Nathan Hare, eds., Pan-Africanism (New York, 1974), pp. 9-19; and Charles V. Hamilton, “Pan-Africanism and the Black Struggle in the U.S.,” in idem, pp. 145-153.

11 Ibid.

12 On the impact of Pan-Africanism in international affairs see Sithole’s African Nationalism; Nkrumah, I Speak of Freedom (New York, 1961); Quaison-Sackey, Africa Unbound; Kwesi Armah, Africa’s Golden Road (London, 1965); and Kenneth Kaunda, Zambia Shall Be Free (Lusaka, 1968).

13 Leopold H. Haimson, The Russian Marxists and the Origins of Bolshevism (Boston, 1955); on the probability of class conflict in Africa see Nkrumah, Class Struggle in Africa (New York, 1970).

14 Ernst Nolte, Three Faces of Fascism (New York, 1965); also Madison Grant, Passing of the Great Race, which is an assertion of Nordism.

15 Wilson Record, The Negro and the Communist Party (New York, 1971); Garvey, Philosophy and Opinions, pp. 69-71.

16 International Monetary Fund, Surveys of African/Economies, vols. 1-5 (Washington, D.C., 1973); Andrew Karmarck, Economics of African Development (New York, 1971); A. Iskenderov, Africa: Politics, Economy & Ideology (Moscow, 1972); Garvey, Philosophy and Opinions, Part I, pp. 67-68. On the lack of capital in Afro-America see Earl Ofari, Myth of Black Capitalism (New York, 1969), pp. 66-86; E. Franklin Frazier, “Negro Business: A Social Myth” in his Black Bourgeoisie (New York, 1962), pp. 129-145; William K. Tabb, Political Economy of the Black Ghetto (New York, 1970), pp. 21-34.

17 Leopold Senghor, On African Socialism (New York, 1964); KANU, African Socialism and Its Application to Kenya (Nairobi, ca. 1965); Tom Mboya, Freedom and After; Kaunda, Zambia Shall Be Free; Nyerere, Ujamaa: Basis of African Socialism (Dares Salaam, 1968). For a critique of “African Socialism” see Friedland and Rosberg, African Socialism; Nkrumah, “African Socialism Revisited” in Revolutionary Path, pp. 438-445; and Arthur Klinghoffer, Soviet Perspectives on African Socialism (New Jersey, 1969).

18 Frantz Fanon, Wretched of the Earth (New York, 1968) and Black Skin, White Masks (New York, 1967); Pius Okigbo, Africa and the Common Market (Evanston, 1967); and Arnold Rivkin, Africa and the European Common Market (Denver, 1966).

19 Philosophy and Opinions, I, p. 68. On the problem of indigenizing the economy see Nkrumah, Neo-Colonialism and Challenge of the Congo; Geoffrey Bing, Reap the Whirlwind (London, 1968); Mamadou Dia, Reflexions sur l’Economie de l’Afrique Noire (Paris, 1963); Elijah Muhammad, Message to the Black Man; E.U. Essien-Udon, Black Nationalism (New York, 1962); Draper, “Nation of Islam” in Rediscovery, pp. 48-56; and Ofari, Myth, pp. 66-86.

20 Nkrumah, “Set Back” in Dark Days in Ghana, pp. 97-112; Peter Garlick, African Traders and Economic Development in Ghana (New York, 1971).

21 Kofi Baako, “African Socialism” (1961), unpublished speech; KANU, African Socialism; Nyerere, Freedom and Uhuru; Nkrumah, Autobiography and Consciencism.

22 Philosophy and Opinions.

23 Mboya, Freedom and After; A. Iskenderov, Africa: Politics, Eco nomy, Ideology.

24 J.C. de Graft-Johnson, Introduction to the African Economy; I.M.F., Surveys of African Economies, vols. 1-5; Paul Streeten and Helen Sutch, Capital for Africa (London, 1971).

25 Oginga Odinga, Not Yet Uhuru; and Charles and Alice Darlington, African Betrayal (New York, 1968).

26 “Ujamaa” in Friedland and Rosberg, pp. 243-246; K. Baako, “Nkrumaism—African Socialism as I Understand It” (1962), unpub lished speech; also Consciencism, pp. 95-102.

27 Mboya, “African Socialism” in Friedland and Rosberg, pp. 251, 253.

28 Louis Lomax, Negro Revolt (New York, 1963), pp. 89-90; also R. Barbor, ed.. Black Power Revolt.

29 Fanon, Wretched of the Earth, and David Apter, Ghana in Transition.

30 Nkrumah, Africa Must Unite.

31 Ibid., pp. 97-117, 173-193.

32 Senghor, On African Socialism, p. 64.

33 Historical Developments and Social Progress in Africa (Moscow, 1972), pp. 31-32.

34 Nkrumah, Revolutionary Path, pp. 40-44; Padmore, Pan-Africanism or Communism?, pp. 61-70.

35 Davidson, Basil, Can Africa Survive? (Boston, 1974),pp. 153-154.Google Scholar

36 Nkrumah, Class Struggle in Africa; Fanon, Black Skin White Masks.

37 Nkrumah, Challenge of the Congo.