The Pan Africanism Movement

Pan Africanism is believed to have its origin in the struggle of the black people against enslavement and colonialism. The struggle or fight is far war back as first slave resistance on slave ships by Africans, the emergency of the spirit of “Ethiopianism” among African slaves on plantation farms in the new world, incessant African slave struggle on plantation farms in the Americas to the reverberated victory of Somerset versus Stewart judgment of 1772.

However, it was not until the twentieth century that it gained momentum as a distinct political and self-liberalization movement of the black race the world over. As such, opinion varies among scholars as to whetherthe pan Africanism conference of 1900 organised by Sylvester Henry Williams marked

We argue that the pan Africanist saw that the genesis of black development is at end of unlawful enslavement of the Blackman against his will, and that what needed to be done was an amalgamated effort to put an end to the “hydra-headed monster” and preach the gospel of equality of mankind to all. In 1785, the precursors of Pan Africanism (sons of Africa) started questioning the very foundations of racism and pro-slavery justifications of the era.theIn their letter to the government ministers including the Queen, they called for the establishment of a more legitimate trade between Africa and the colonial powers. Despite the fact that their effort to the abolition of the slave trade might be quite insignificant and not a major catalyst for it, as there were no any other moral grounds for it abolition, but the overt demand of the industrial revolution of Europe that the slaves could no longer shoulder. The point in contention is that although insignificant, the precursors of pan Africanism contributed to it abolition of slave trade within their capacity.

The abolition of the slave trade in 1807 triggered a new form of western dominance in Africa and a formal struggle for materials in Africa to meet the industrial demand of Europe culminating in the partition of Africa at the Berlin

Pan Africanists began searching for various ways of quelling the flames of colonialism and imperialistic expansion that was ravaging the entire continent. At the 1921 pan Africanist conference, the leaders unanimously demanded for the recognition of the political, social and cultural freedoms of the Africans. The 1945 conference had the most reverberated impact on the decolonization process of African states. It led to the emergence of new breed of Pan Africanists such as Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana, Nimadi Azikiwe of Nigeria and Jomo Kenyatta of Kenya who passionately fought for the independence of African