Pan African Congresss

The meeting of the African congress in Manchester in 1945 could be viewed by many scholars as one of the most important event, if not the most important event in the history of the Pan African movement. What was it about this particular meeting that derived such notoriety versus other meetings? This essay will make an attempt to give an insight into what made this meting the "Turing point in the history in the 1945 meeting in Manchester" according to P. Olisanwuche Esedbe.

Up until the end of World War Two the continent of Africa was a victim of imperialism. Most of Western Europe forced Africa into a system of mercantilism. This system subjected the indigenous people of African States and West Indian islands to an unfair system of racial hierarchy, that disfranchise them politically economical and socially. Lacking any barging chips many of the Pan African Congress meeting lead to no real action until the meeting in 1945. It was at this meeting that a new strategy was introduced. Using techniques from India the congress decides that the African trade unions would play a significant role in the movement. " Your weapon the strike and the boycott are inveigle" with the use of trade union the landscape of the congress also changed. In prior years the Pan African movement was a "protest movement of middle class African Americans intellectual residing out side Africa" with the incorporation of the trade unions continental Africans began to play a more critical role in the movement.

In contrast to previous meeting there were ninety delegates, twenty-six from all over Africa. Peter Abrahams for the ANC, Hastings Banda, Nkrumah, Obafemi Awolowo and Kenyatta. There was also Marcus Garvey's wife and Trinidadian radical George Padmore.

What made this meeting significant was that at this meeting was were Africans began to take the lead role in the movement. "the old belief that the struggle for freedom could be fought and won in Europe" was the prior ideas of the movement that were fostered by non African national like Du Bois and Booker T. Washington. At the meeting in Manchester the ideas of more socialist African nationals like Nkrumah, was promentinet. "henceforward, the struggle must be conducted in the homeland as the Indians."

It is clear to see that the pan African movement and it ideas have been around prior to the meting in manchester in 1945, but it was

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