African Americans and the Cold War from Civil Rights to Black Power

After the conclusion of the Second Imperialist War the movement for equality, self-determination and national liberation intensified

By Abayomi Azikiwe, Editor, Pan-African News Wire

Thursday February 22, 2024

African American History Month Series No. 6

When the Red Army seized control of Berlin in early May 1945 hoisting the Soviet flag on the Reichstag building within the besieged city, jubilations erupted across Europe and around the world.

The European phase of the Second Imperialist War cost the lives of tens of millions of people in the fight against fascism.

In the North African state of Algeria thousands of people went into the streets on May 8, 1945 celebrating the defeat of the German military while at the same time demanding an immediate end to French colonialism. Instead of joining in with the people of Algeria, a country which had been subjected to imperialist rule since 1830, the French police and military opened fire killing thousands in one of the largest massacres of the colonial period.

Details related to this horrendous act of repression ordered by the French military and government were suppressed and then denied by the officials in Paris. Algeria, as a result of the German occupation of France after 1940, had become the de facto capital of the European state.

In one account of the massacre, it emphasizes that:

“Panic ensued and clashes between the Algerians and French quickly led to violence with the French using all attempts to control the population. The colonial forces launched an air and ground offensive against several eastern cities, particularly in Setif and Guelma. The head of the temporary government of France at the time, General De Gaulle, ordered for farmers and villagers from surrounding areas to be killed in what quickly became lynching operations and summary executions. Thousands of bodies accumulated so quickly that burying them was impossible, so they were often dumped in wells or surrounding ravines. The violence would continue until 22 May when the tribes surrendered. By then, 45,000 Algerian men, women and children in and around the region of Setif, Guelma and Kherrata had been killed along with 102 French casualties.” (https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20170508-remembering-the-massacre-of-45000-algerians/)

The May 8 massacre and subsequent events in Algeria fueled nationalist sentiment which eventually created the conditions for the initiation of an armed struggle nine years later in November 1954. The war of liberation lasted until 1962 when the French imperialists were forced to grant independence to Algeria after 132 years of occupation.

These events in Algeria during the post-war period were by no means isolated incidents. The following year beginning on August 12, 1946, thousands of African miners struck in the Union of South Africa. The strike was led by J.B. Marks of the Communist Party and the African National Congress (ANC). 

The mine bosses and police responded to the strike with brute force. At least 9 miners were killed and more than 1,200 were wounded and injured. Although the strike was ruthlessly suppressed, the degree of militancy exemplified by the African Miners Union would have an impact on the overall struggle for national liberation led by the ANC and its allies during the subsequent years during the 1950s. 

In the Gold Coast, later known as Ghana, the African military veterans were angered over the failure of the British colonial forces to pay benefits for their service during the Second Imperialist War. On February 28, 1948, during a demonstration by the ex-servicemen in the capital Accra, the British security forces opened fire on the march killing three people. In response, strikes and rebellions erupted throughout various regions of the country. 

According to one account of these developments:

“The people’s protests lasted five days. By 1st March the colonial governor had declared a state of emergency and put in place a new Riot Act. On 12th March the governor ordered the arrest of ‘The Big Six,’ leading members of the UGCC, which included Kwame Nkrumah, as he believed they were responsible for orchestrating the disturbances. The Big Six were incarcerated in remote northern parts of the country. It was around this time that Nkrumah and the other five began to have significant disagreements over the direction of the movement for independence. By 1949 Nkrumah had broken away from the UGCC to form the Convention People’s Party (CPP) taking the masses of the people with him. The CPP, through a campaign of ‘Positive Action,’ achieved an end to the Gold Coast colony and brought the new dawn of independent Ghana on 6th March 1957.” (https://praad.gov.gh/index.php/the-riots-of-28th-february-1948/)

Impact of the Cold War on the African American Struggle

These events in Africa had a tremendous impact on people of African descent in the U.S. Even prior to the Rand Miners’ strike of 1946, the Council on African Affairs (CAA) led by Dr. William A. Hunton, Paul Robeson and others held a solidarity rally with the South African movement at Madison Square Garden in New York City on June 6, mobilizing tens of thousands. The CAA was founded in 1937 by Robeson, Hunton, Max Yergan and many others. 

However, after the conclusion of World War II, the CAA would come under fire by the U.S. government which labelled the organization as a “communist front.” Similar attacks were also carried out against the Civil Rights Congress (CRC) since both organizations were supported by the Communist Party. 

Robeson, Du Bois and his wife, Shirley Graham Du Bois, were targeted for their support of the socialist states and national liberation movements in Africa. After they attended the Paris Peace Conference of 1949 their passports were confiscated, and Du Bois was later charged with being an “agent of a foreign power” due to his opposition to the Cold War which threatened the commencement of another global conflagration this time involving the socialist states and U.S. imperialism. 

Although the case against W.E.B. Du Bois collapsed, many others were indicted between 1948 and 1951 on numerous charges including failure to register as a foreign agent and conspiring to overthrow the U.S. government. The Smith Act, which outlawed the advocacy of the violent overthrow of the government, was utilized in the indictments and prosecutions of more than 100 members of the Communist Party. Lawyers which provided legal assistance to the defendants were held by the judge in contempt of court and faced disbarment and jail sentences. 

The Cold War and the Mass Civil Rights Movement

In May 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down its Brown v. Topeka ruling which declared that the “separate but equal” decision in the Plessy v. Fergusen case of 1896 was inherently unconstitutional. The following year with the lynching of 14-year-old Emmett Till in Mississippi and the quest for justice in the case by his mother, Mamie Till Mobley, created an atmosphere of discontent among the African American people. 

Although the Mississippi courts refused to convict the two murderers of Till, by December of 1955, the Montgomery Bus Boycott erupted sparked by the arrest of Mrs. Rosa L. Parks of the NAACP who had worked closely with E.D. Nixon, an organizer for the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters and Maids. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., a Baptist minister in Montgomery, became the spokesperson for the movement. 

After the successful conclusion of the Montgomery Bus Boycott in 1956 when the Supreme Court ruled against segregation in the municipal transportation service, King and his comrades founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in 1957. Although a Civil Rights Bill was passed by the U.S. Congress in 1957 aimed at strengthening the capacity of the Justice Department to enforce the right to vote among African Americans, progress remained extremely slow for the remainer of the decade.

However, by 1960, student demonstrations erupted across the South against legalized segregation involving public accommodations and private businesses. During April, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) was formed at an SCLC sponsored conference held at Shaw University in Raleigh, North Carolina. Ella Baker, who had served as the executive secretary of SCLC, encouraged the students to form their own independent organization.

SNCC moved throughout various areas of the South organizing local communities and students to advance the struggle against segregation and later for voting rights. The Mississippi Summer Project of 1964 brought together numerous Civil Rights groups in the state where they engaged in voter registration and the formation of the Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP).

Other important developments in 1964 would prove highly significant. Malcolm X broke with the Nation of Islam forming the Organization of Afro-American Unity (OAAU) on June 28 after a tour of the African continent and several countries in West Asia. Malcolm’s emphasis on armed self-defense, Black Nationalism and Pan-Africanism had a monumental influence on SNCC and other young people. 

By 1966, when Stokely Carmichael, later known as Kwame Ture, became SNCC chairman, Black-led urban rebellions had increased in their frequency across the U.S. It was the work of SNCC in Lowndes County, Alabama in 1965-66 which led to the creation of the original Black Panther Party. The Black Panther concept rapidly spread to other regions of the U.S. In October 1966, the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense was founded in Oakland, California under the leadership of Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation and the U.S. Congress continued their repressive campaigns against the leadership of social movements under the guise of fighting communism and subversion. Many people were killed during the more than 200 urban rebellions which took place between 1964 and 1970. More than twenty members of the Black Panther Party were murdered by police and those operating in their interest. Hundreds of Panthers and members of other revolutionary organizations were framed on trump-up charges and sent to jails and prisons. 

Therefore, the attempted suppression of national liberation movements in Africa coincided with the efforts to overthrow the socialist countries while simultaneously targeting Black-led social movements in the U.S. These developments further exposed the falsehood that the U.S. political system was based upon democratic practice and the right to due process. 

Cultural Renaissance, Economic Crises and the Struggle Against Fascism, 1919-1945

Africans from across the globe joined hands in efforts to end colonialism and imperialism

By Abayomi Azikiwe, Editor, Pan-African News Wire

Wednesday February 21, 2024

African American History Month Series No. 5

In the aftermath of the First Imperialist War, African Americans and people of African descent around the world escalated their movements to end colonial domination, legalized segregation and the super-exploitation of their land, resources and labor.

The Pan-African Congress held in Paris during 1919 represented a turning point in the political consciousness and organizational capacity of the Black masses globally.

A central figure in this process was Dr. W.E.B. Du Bois, one of the co-founders of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (N.A.A.C.P.) in 1909. Du Bois was a graduate of Harvard University in 1896 where he wrote his Ph.D. Dissertation on the suppression of the African slave trade. 

By 1900, Du Bois was involved in the Pan-African Conference held in London from July 23-25. After WWI, the historian and social scientist in response to the Paris Peace Conference called for another gathering, this time entitled the Pan-African Congress. 

Although the resolutions of the Pan-African Congress in Paris during 1919 were limited in their militancy due to the strength of imperialism even in the wake of the pillage involving millions during the war, the gathering was a clear reflection of the heighten consciousness of peoples throughout the oppressed nations. In that same year, the Industrial and Commercial Workers Union (ICU) was founded by African workers in Cape Town, South Africa where it embarked upon an unprecedented strike against racism and exploitation. 

Also in the summer of 1919, white racist mobs backed by police and national guardsmen invaded African American communities in cities such as Chicago, Knoxville and Washington, D.C. attacking, robbing, burning and murdering African American people. However, in contrast to the lynchings in the rural and urban South, veterans from the war organized defense brigades where they fought back with a vengeance against the racists. 

Consequently, the stage was set for a surge in organizations advocating armed self-defense, desegregation, Socialism, Nationalism and Pan-Africanism. Du Bois had established “The Crisis: A Record of the Darker Races” in 1910 just one year after the NAACP was founded. The magazine played a pioneering role in the development of what became known as the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s. 

The Role of Jessie Redmon Fauset in the Harlem Renaissance and Pan-Africanism

In 1919, Du Bois recruited educator and writer Jessie Redmon Fauset and appointed her as the literary editor of The Crisis. Fauset had been born into an impoverished family in New Jersey in 1882.

Despite her humble origins she was able to excel academically at the Philadelphia High School for Girls and later won a scholarship to Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. Fauset earned a bachelor’s degree at the Ivy League institution in classical languages and literature in 1905. Later she received a master’s degree from the University of Pennsylvania in 1919. She would work as a high school teacher in Washington, D.C. while gaining notoriety as a poet and writer of short stories, essays and novels. 

As literary editor of The Crisis she was described by legendary poet, novelist, composer, playwright and public intellectual Langston Hughes as the “midwife” of the Harlem Renaissance. Hughes noted that it was Fauset who published his first poems in The Crisis. Other figures which rose to prominence during the 1920s such as Jean Toomer, Countee Cullen and Claude McKay were given access to The Crisis which had broad circulation during the 1920s. 

The Second Pan-African Congress organized by Du Bois was held in late August and early September of 1921 in the European capitals of London, Paris and Brussels. Fauset represented the NAACP at the gatherings and later wrote an extensive report in The Crisis entitled “Impressions of the Second Pan-African Congress” published in the November edition of the magazine. Following her detailed description of the Congress, “A Manifesto to the League of Nations” was reprinted. (https://archive.org/details/crisis2324dubo/page/n23/mode/1up?view=theater)

The League of Nations formed after the conclusion of the First Imperialist War and the Paris Peace Conference of 1919, agreed to accept the manifesto from the Pan-African Congress delegation as outlined by Fauset in her report. Nonetheless, the United States never joined the inter-governmental organization even though President Woodrow Wilson was given a Nobel Peace Prize for his participation in the post-war talks and the Treaty of Versailles. 

Fauset’s interest in Pan-Africanism had begun before she joined The Crisis magazine in 1919. The first issue of the Journal of Negro History, founded by Dr. Carter G. Woodson in 1915-16, features a book review by Fauset on the history of Haiti which was written by T.G. Steward. Prior to going to the Second Pan-African Congress, she co-authored an article with Cezar Pinto on the Brazilian abolitionist Jose Do Patrocinio who worked tirelessly for the liberation of Africans still enslaved in the South American state during the 1870s and 1880s. The article entitled “The Emancipator of Brazil” appeared in the March 1921 issue of The Crisis. (https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/workers/civil-rights/crisis/0300-crisis-v21n05-w125.pdf)

The literary editor and mentor traveled regularly to France to study at the University of Paris Sorbonne. She was fluent in French and other languages in which she taught in high schools before and after leaving The Crisis.

In 1925, Fauset visited Algeria, then a French colony in North Africa. She would write a two-part report published in The Crisis in their April-May 1925 editions entitled “Dark Algiers The White” where she recounts her experience in the living quarters of the colonized population. France occupied Algeria from 1830 to 1962 when a guerrilla war led by the National Liberation Front (FLN) forced the French government to grant independence to the country. (https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.32106005491805&view=1up&seq=26&skin=2021)

The Harlem Renaissance during the 1920s would come to a screeching halt when the stock market collapsed in October of 1929. The economic downturn disproportionately impacted African people leading to a new phase in the struggle to end racism and national oppression on an international scale.

The Great Depression, the Rise of Fascism and the Second Imperialist War

As the U.S. and the entire capitalist world fell into an unprecedented economic depression in the 1930s, resistance movements arose at a rapid pace. Efforts aimed at organizing labor unions and winning recognition by the corporations and later public entities accelerated.

In several European states the crisis had already taken hold in the years following World War I when inflation and unemployment reached astronomical levels. The Treaty of Versailles has often been cited as fueling the financial downfall in the 1920s and 1930s. 

Italy, where a fascist government came to power in 1922 under Benito Mussolini, embodied aspirations to revive the ancient empire of Rome. In 1896 at the Battle of Adwa, the First Italo-Ethiopian War resulted in the defeat of the Kingdom of Italy in their campaign to expand its colonial holdings. Earlier in 1889, the Italians seized Eritrea and later signed the Treaty of Wuchale which supposedly protected Ethiopia from attack. 

Nonetheless, the fascist Italian regime had no intentions of abiding by the treaty and seven years later attempted to seize control of Ethiopia. The defeat of Italy in 1896 is still commemorated every year in Ethiopia as an historic event which impacted the entire struggle against colonialism.

Nearly four decades later in October 1935, Mussolini’s army invaded Ethiopia again causing massive casualties. The use of mustard gas by the Italians and other atrocities prompted international outrage. In the U.S. and Britain, committees arose among African Americans and people of African descent living in England calling for the withdrawal of Italian forces.

Socialist and Pan-Africanist organizers C.L.R. James and George Padmore, both of whom were originally from Trinidad-Tobago, then living in the United Kingdom, formed the International Friends of Abyssinia (Ethiopia) in 1935-36. In the U.S., African Americans set up recruiting stations to send volunteers to fight against the fascists occupying Ethiopia. 

The events of 1935 portended much for the future of Europe and the world. When Adolph Hitler and the Nazi Party took power in 1933 in Germany it signaled the imminent threat of fascism in Europe. By 1941, both Britain and the U.S. were brought into the war against the fascists and the imperial expansionist regime in Japan.

During the Second Imperialist War, heavy fighting took place in the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), Eastern and Western Europe. Due to the imperialist character of the war, fierce battles were fought in the North African states of Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria and Libya. The Italians had fought against the anti-colonial resistance in Libya from 1911 to 1931. When the Italian army failed to defeat Britain in North Africa during the early 1940s, fascist Germany sent in their troops in a failed attempt to secure the region for the expansionist aims of Berlin and Rome. 

By the conclusion of World War II, a reconfiguration of international power dynamics came into being. The U.S. would emerge as the undisputed dominant imperialist state while the Soviet Union not only reclaimed their territory from Nazi occupation during 1941-43 the Red Army drove the Nazis across Eastern Europe back into Germany where they met their inevitable defeat in May 1945.

After the conclusion of WWII, the struggle against colonialism, imperialism and racism accelerated. However, the emergence of an anti-capitalist bloc with the revolutions in North Vietnam, North Korea and China along with the rise of socialism in Eastern Europe, would pose a monumental challenge to the aims of the U.S. to consolidate hegemonic control over the globe.     

Pan-African Struggles Against Colonialism and the First Imperialist War, 1876-1919

From the decline of the Triangular Trade to the rapacious extraction of mineral resources and labor exploitation, Africans have organized and revolted against western domination

By Abayomi Azikiwe, Editor, Pan-African News Wire

Thursday February 15, 2024

African American History Month Series No. 4

Beginning in 1876, the monarchy in Belgium initiated a massive campaign to fully conquer the Congo where tremendous wealth existed in natural resources and labor power.

King Leopold I pursued the riches and workforce in Congo as a private enterprise where agents of the monarchy and other transnational corporations functioned as a de facto regime.

Over the next 32 years until 1908 when the colonial administration in Brussels took over the national oppressive and exploitative system in Congo, several reports indicate that up to ten million Africans were killed in the territories claimed by Belgium. Several years after the Belgian intervention in Congo during 1884-85, the Berlin West Africa Conference was held in Germany which carved up the continent as spheres of interests for the imperialist powers.

Nonetheless, in the so-called Belgian Congo, Africans from various regions of the country resisted the horrendous methods of domination and forced labor. According to Calvin C. Kolar in his review of the literature on the efforts by the people to repel colonial rule noted that:

“A Force Publique officer reported, ‘I expect a general uprising...the motive is always the same, the natives are tired of the existing regime ­ transport work, rubber collection, furnishing [food] for whites and black...For three months I have been fighting, with ten days rest...Yet I cannot say I have subjugated the people. They prefer to fight or die...What can I do?’ These revolts by the Mongo people highlighted the fact that revolts were not constrained to the Kasai region. Reacting to various pressures, violent resistance was widespread throughout the Congo.” (https://opensiuc.lib.siu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1410&context=uhp_theses)

These developments were by no means isolated incidents. Africans resisted the onslaught of classical colonialism which resulted in the reported deaths of millions. From the late 19th century through the period of World War I, there were several rebellions and organized wars of resistance in the areas now known as Zimbabwe and Malawi, then controlled by Britain, along with Southwest Africa and Tanganyika under German domination. 

The attempts to conquer Mashonaland and Matabeleland, now known as Zimbabwe, by the British military forces prompted the First Chimurenga (war of resistance). Africans fought a series of battles over a two-year period (1896-97) against the British. Due to the lack of sophisticated weapons in abundance, the people of Mashonaland and Matabeleland were eventually defeated militarily and brought under colonial domination. (https://www.zim.gov.zw/index.php/en/my-government/provinces/mashonaland-east/9-uncategorised/461-history-of-zimbabwe-2?showall=1)

Later between 1904-1907, the Herero and Nama people of Southwest Africa, now known as Namibia, waged a resistance war against German colonialism. In retaliation for their resistance, the German imperialists systematically relocated and slaughtered 80 percent of the Namibian people. (https://www.aljazeera.com/features/longform/2022/11/6/reckoning-with-genocide-in-namibia)

Also under German control, the colony of Tanganyika experienced a war of resistance popularly referred to as the Maji Maji Revolt of 1905-7. Africans in Tanganyika objected to the theft of their land, the paying of taxes to the colonialists while being subjected to forced labor in the production of agricultural products. (https://theconversation.com/300-000-tanzanians-were-killed-by-germany-during-the-maji-maji-uprising-it-was-genocide-and-should-be-called-that-217712)

These events in Southern and Eastern Africa are highlighted to emphasize that African people responded in similar ways to the rise of colonialism during the 19th and early 20th centuries across the continent. The atrocities committed by the Belgian, British and German colonialists have been well documented by numerous journalists and historians during this period and in subsequent years. 

The military phase of the struggle against imperialism in Africa was paralleled by the formation of mass organizations and conferences throughout the world. This process of opposition to European domination was a combined political, cultural and military effort to bring about the eventual independence of these territories and colonial states.

Colonialism in Africa and the Movements Against Racism

On July 23-25, the First Pan-African Conference was held in London, England just prior to the Paris Exposition. The gathering was attended by Africans and people of African descent largely from the British colonies and other English-speaking territories. 

This meeting followed the Chicago Columbian Exposition and the Congress on Africa in 1893 where African American leaders such as anti-slavery organizer, women’s suffrage advocate and diplomat Frederick Douglass along with Ida B. Wells, who had built an international reputation as a journalist and an outspoken critic of the United States legal system for its refusal to prosecute mobs and law-enforcement personnel for carrying out thousands of lynchings in the South, utilized Douglass’ links with the Haitian government to distribute thousands of pamphlets exposing the actual conditions of Black people during this period. Wells’ work in defense of the security and rights of African Americans played an instrumental role in the launching of the African American women’s movement which came into fruition during the late 1890s and early 1900s. (https://blackwomenssuffrage.dp.la/collections/ida-b-wells/ibwells-0010-005)

The 1900 Pan-African Conference was described by the following source in this way:

“Speakers over the three days addressed a variety of aspects of racial discrimination. Among the papers delivered were ‘Conditions Favoring a High Standard of African Humanity’ (C. W. French of St. Kitts), ‘The Preservation of Racial Equality’ (Anna H. Jones, from Kansas), ‘The Necessary Concord to be Established between Native Races and European Colonists’ (Benito Sylvain, Haitian aide-de-camp to the Ethiopian emperor), ‘The Negro Problem in America’ (Anna J. Cooper, from Washington), ‘The Progress of our People’ (John E. Quinlan of St. Lucia) and ‘Africa, the Sphinx of History, in the Light of Unsolved Problems’ (D. E. Tobias from the USA). (https://friendsoftheafricanunion.com/african-diaspora/the-pan-african-congresses/the-1st-pan-african-congress/)

By 1912, Duse Muhammad Ali from Egypt, founded the African Times and Orient Review in London. The newspaper published articles in opposition to colonialism in Africa and Asia. 

People such as Marcus Garvey, the founder of the Universal Negro Improvement Association-African Communities League (UNIA-ACL) in 1914 worked at the African Times and Orient Review prior to his emergence as world leader. In 1916 Garvey re-located to the U.S. and by the early 1920s, the UNIA-ACL had grown to an international movement with chapters around the U.S., the Caribbean, South America, Europe and in some regions of the African continent. (https://era.ed.ac.uk/handle/1842/7323)

Consequently, leading up to the beginning of World War I, there were many instances of political and military resistance to imperialism on the part of African people on the continent and within the Diaspora. The First imperialist war from 1914-1918 led to an intensification of the struggle to end institutional racism and colonialism. 

African Resistance to World War I

One of the earliest rebellions against the First Imperialist War took place in the British colony of Nyasaland, which is modern-day Malawi in early 1915. The rebellion was led by John Chilembwe, a U.S.-trained Baptist minister and educator who sought to prevent Africans from being recruited into the war effort.

There were battles on the African continent between German and British imperialist forces over the control of territories. Chilembwe protested the conscription of Africans into the British military for the purpose of fighting the Germans.

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in a publication said of the Nyasaland Revolt:

“John Chilembwe's rising was precipitated by the enlistment of Nyasas and their large death toll in the first weeks of the war in battle with the Germans. In his memorable censored letter to the Nyasaland Times of 26 November 1914 he protested 'We understand that we have been invited to shed our innocent blood in this world's war ... we are imposed upon more than any other nationality under the sun'.” (https://courier.unesco.org/en/articles/first-world-war-and-its-consequences-africa)

John McCracken in his book entitled “A History of Malawi, 1859-1966, the author said of the Nyasaland Revolt:

“Within a fortnight the revolt had been suppressed. Three Europeans had died; two had been severely wounded, 36 convicted rebels had been executed, many others had been killed by the security forces. ‘For a rebellion against foreign rule, it had been, on the face of it, singularly ineffective’ noted Shepperson and Price in their authoritative account of the rising. Yet, as they also commented, the importance of the rising was far greater than its immediate, quantifiable, impact. A leading historian has claimed that this was the only significant rebellion in the whole of Africa to be inspired by Christianity prior to the First World War. It provided Malawi with its one unproblematic hero, John Chilembwe; his image is now depicted on Malawian bank notes.” (https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/history-of-malawi/chilembwe-rising/A03646A52AADB620B9B37CF25EAEBCD4)

In the U.S., A. Philip Randolph and Chandler Owens, editors of the Messenger newspaper, which was affiliated with the Socialist Party during World War I, were charged with violating the Espionage Act of 1917. The paper opposed African American involvement in the imperialist war. (https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/messenger/index.htm)

Although Randolph and Owens were arrested at a Socialist Party rally in Cleveland on August 4, 1918, and brought into court for espionage, the judge refused to sentence them because he did not believe that the two young African Americans could have written and edited the Messenger. He believed that they were mere agents of the Socialists and ordered them to leave the city. 

Randolph and Owens were only two of the estimated 10,000 people who were arrested for opposing the war, many of whom were socialists. Others were deported for advocating peace and social change. The repression initiated by the Department of Justice during the war continued under Attorney General W. Mitchell Palmer when in 1919-20, 6,000 people were unlawfully detained in over 30 cities. 

After the conclusion of the First Imperialist War, Dr. W.E.B. Du Bois convened the Pan-African Congress in Paris. This gathering in 1919 coincided with the escalation of racist violence inside the U.S. along with anti-colonial rebellions in Egypt. (https://www.history.com/news/red-summer-1919-riots-chicago-dc-great-migration) (https://www.open.edu/openlearn/history-the-arts/history/after-the-first-world-war-the-1919-egyptian-revolution)

As the 1920s and 1930s would reveal, the struggle against national oppression, institutional racism and imperialism escalated. By the beginning of the Second Imperialist War, the historical stage was set for the advent of the independence and civil rights movements which swept the entire African world.

Emancipation, the Nadir and Pan-African Awakenings

From the post-Civil War years to the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, African people acted in unity to end colonialism and national oppression

By Abayomi Azikiwe, Editor, Pan-African News Wire

Tuesday February 6, 2024

African American History Month Series No. 3

“The unfriendly whites first drove the native American from his much-loved home. Then they stole our fathers from their peaceful and quiet dwellings, and brought them hither, and made bondmen and bondwomen of them and their little ones. They have obliged our brethren to labor; kept them in utter ignorance; nourished them in vice and raised them in degradation; and now that we have enriched their soil, and filled their coffers, they say that we are not capable of becoming like white men, and that we never can rise to respectability in this country.” (Quote taken from a Maria W. Stewart address entitled African Rights and Liberty delivered at the African Masonic Hall in Boston, February 27, 1833)

These words uttered in a public address later published in the abolitionist Liberator newspaper edited by William Lloyd Garrison some three decades prior to the African intervention in the United States Civil War, typified the sentiment of Black people during the escalating struggle over the future of slavery. (https://awpc.cattcenter.iastate.edu/2020/11/20/an-address-african-rights-and-liberty-feb-27-1833/)

Maria W. Stewart (1803-1879), born in the northeast state of Connecticut, is said to have been the first woman of any race to speak before audiences of all genders. A series of her speeches between 1831-33, which often utilized religious themes, also gave a materialist analysis of the social conditions of African Americans in the 19th century.  

After the defeat of the Confederacy in April 1865, the post-Lincoln government led by President Andrew Johnson was faced with the policy question of how to deal with the 4.5 million people of African descent of which nearly 90 percent were enslaved. Since the national Colored Conventions held in the U.S. beginning in 1830, African American men and women were calling for full equality and land. 

Nevertheless, the gallant legislative and organizational efforts of African Americans and their allies within the political superstructure in the House of Representative, Senate, along with state and local governing entities, could not reverse the failure to reconstruct the U.S. on bourgeois democratic principles. These historical developments would plunge the country into another century of racial turmoil. A series of judicial and legislative decisions set the African American people back to a period often described as the “Nadir”. Elected and appointed officials were driven from offices in Washington, state capitals and local governments. This level of institutional racism and repression was enforced by the Ku Klux Klan and other violent white supremacist organizations. Their policies of complete segregation were given legal cover by the state and federal courts which reversed the intent of the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments to the Constitution along with the Civil Rights Acts passed during Reconstruction. 

By the last decade of the 19th century, “lynch law” was prevalent throughout the South and other regions of the U.S. Thousands of African Americans were being driven from their farms, workplaces and communities. Others were subjected to highly exploitative conditions of employment and unlawful imprisonment which were just as horrendous if not worse than the antebellum period.

Interventions at the Columbian Exposition 

Chicago was the scene for the 1893 Columbian Exposition (World Fair) where people from throughout the globe would visit the city to “celebrate” the 400th anniversary of the “discovery” of America by Christopher Columbus. The entire framework of the gathering was of course flawed since there were already peoples and nations in existence in the western hemisphere centuries prior to the arrival of Columbus in the Caribbean. 

The fair immediately drew the ire of leading African Americans who decried the total neglect of the contributions of their people in the three decades since the legal end of enslavement. Fortunately, in response, the Haitian government appointed longtime public speaker, author and diplomat Frederick Douglass as co-commissioner of the exhibit for this independent African island-nation in the Caribbean. 

After the protest by community organizations, the event administrators designated one day for African Americans. Anti-lynching campaigner and journalist, Ida B. Wells, a much-younger friend and collaborator of Douglass, urged him not to participate in this concession. Douglass argued that he would take advantage of any opportunity to advance the plight of African Americans. 

At the Haitian exhibit, a document written by Douglass, Wells, I. Garland Penn and Ferdinand Barnett, the future husband of Wells, entitled “The Reason Why the Colored American Is Not in the World’s Columbian Exposition”, was broadly circulated in the thousands. The pamphlet, which extended over 80 pages, was a damning indictment against the U.S. political, economic and social system. 

Wells in chapter IV of The Reason Why explained the purported origins of lynch law in the U.S. Citing the Virginia Lancet related to horse theft, Col. Wm. Lynch drafted the law in 1780, and it has been referred to since as the infliction of punishment by private and unauthorized persons. 

According to Wells in the chapter:

“This law continues in force today in some of the oldest states of the Union where the courts of justice have long been established, whose laws are executed by white Americans. It flourishes most largely in the states which foster the convict lease system and is brought to bear mainly against the Negro. The first fifteen years of freedom he was murdered by masked mobs for trying to vote. Public opinion having made lynching for that cause unpopular a new reason is given to justify the murders of the past 15 years. The Negro was first charged with attempting to rule white people and hundreds were murdered on that pretended supposition. He is now charged with assaulting or attempting to assault white women. This charge, as false as it is foul, robs us of the sympathy of the world and is blasting the race’s good name.” (https://www.lib.uchicago.edu/ead/pdf/ibwells-0010-005.pdf)

This intervention in 1893 coincided with the Chicago Congress on Africa and the Congress of Representative Women, both of which were addressed by African American women. The Congress on Africa occurred between August 14-21. The event was spread out across various churches within the African American community. Several press accounts praised the Congress on Africa as the most interesting and significant aspect of the Columbian Exposition.

According to one account of the deliberations:

“From August 14, 1893, to August 21, 1893 probably the largest number of African American participants in a world's fair event assembled as part of the Congress on Africa, or as it was sometimes referred to, the Congress on African Ethnology, or the Congress on the Negro. Its eight-day length included a citywide Sunday session that entered the sanctuaries and pulpits of scores of churches, so thousands of interested church congregants listened to information on the status of the global African population. Identified fully for what it was, the Congress on Africa combined the intellectual with the ideological, religious, philosophical and scientific to formulate an agenda facilitating, in effect, a dualistic American African public policy on the status of continental and diasporan Africans. Frederick Douglass, Alexander Crummell, John Mercer Langston, T. Thomas Fortune and Bishop Henry McNeal Turner discussed the future of Africa with a smattering of continental Africans in attendance. For the American nation, this congress brought about a re-creation of the liberal arrangement between the races that originated in the abolitionist era. And, in its aftermath it represented a first dialogue in substantive interracial cooperation. Accordingly, well-educated blacks as well as the elite and middle-class whites presented invited papers. Africans from the continent and from the Diaspora filled the black ranks, many being the most notable persons in their fields of endeavor - intellectually-endowed, well-known and respected by members of both races. So, with enthusiasm, Caucasians from Europe, Africa and America collaborated in problem-solving based on African strengths rather than handwringing over African deficiencies.” (http://columbus.iit.edu/reed2.html#:~:text=From%20August%2014%2C%201893%2C%20to,the%20Congress%20on%20the%20Negro.)

Pan-African Awakenings 1897-1900

During the time period in which the Columbian Exposition was held, colonialism was expanding exponentially on the African continent. The Berlin West Africa Conference of 1884-85 convened by the leading European powers divided the continent among the imperialist states. (https://loveman.sdsu.edu/docs/1885GeneralActBerlinConference.pdf)

By 1897 in Britain, the African Association had been formed by activists such as South African Alice Kinloch and Trinidadian-born Barrister Henry Sylvester Williams. By 1900 the so-called First Pan-African Conference was convened in London which attracted delegations largely from African descendants in the European, U.S. and Caribbean Diaspora. 

The event held between July 23-25 enjoyed the active participation of Dr. W.E.B. Du Bois, Bishop Alexander Walters, Ms. Anna Julia Cooper, among others. The African Association was merged into the Pan-African Association which, according to the conference report, was supposed to hold another gathering within two years in the U.S. (https://credo.library.umass.edu/view/pageturn/mums312-b004-i320/#page/1/mode/1up)

Nonetheless, such a gathering was not held until after the conclusion of World War I in 1919 in Paris to coincide with the discussions by the imperialist powers over the geopolitical dynamics stemming from the post-war situation. Nonetheless, the objective limitations of the organizers of the Pan-African Conference of 1900 in London did not halt the resistance to colonialism on the African continent and throughout the world. 

African Emigration and the United States Civil War

Through flight and rebellion enslaved people created the conditions for their own liberation

By Abayomi Azikiwe, Editor, Pan-African News Wire

Sunday February 4, 2024

African American History Month Series No. 2

After the United States Congress outlawed participation in the Atlantic Slave Trade in 1808, the kidnapping and importation of Africans into North America continued. (https://repository.lsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2769&context=cwbr)

From the geographical regions on the continent where the trade in human capital thrived, there was resistance from Africans to their bondage which was designed for the purpose of gross exploitation enforced through national oppression.

Numerous revolts among the enslaved African population occurred throughout the Western Hemisphere from Brazil, St. Vincent, Jamaica, Haiti, Cuba, the United States, among others. In the U.S., the plans for rebellion in Richmond led by Gabriel in 1800; the German Coast revolt in Louisiana in 1811; the Charleston incident under the direction of Denmark Vessey in 1822; a widespread revolt in 1831 led by Nat Turner in Southhampton County, Virginia shook the ideological foundations of the slavocracy.  

These acts of resistance were the most well known since under the system of African enslavement there was resistance which took many forms on a daily basis. In addition to direct violent confrontation with the slave owners and their functionaries, many people fled the plantations seeking freedom from the tyranny of enforced labor exploitation.

Those Africans who escaped bondage either through legal means after the conclusion of the Revolutionary War in the northeast or migration to areas outside the U.S., played a critical role in the establishment of the Underground Railroad. This term was attributed to an organized cadre of anti-slavery activists who facilitated the departure of Africans from their slave masters.

In areas within the northeast of the U.S. there were newspapers founded in cities such as New York, Philadelphia and Boston which advocated the emancipation of African people. In Philadelphia there was the formation of anti-slavery societies for both men and women. Philadelphia was the scene of the initiation of the Free African Society and later the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME) which contributed to the political education and agitation for the dissolution of legalized slavery. (https://philadelphiaencyclopedia.org/essays/free-african-society/)

Mary Ann Shadd and the Debates Surrounding Emigration and Full Equality

One of the key routes of the Underground Railroad was pathed through19th century Detroit where a community of African Americans by the 1830s-1840s began to build independent institutions in this strategically located municipality bordering what became known as Ontario, Canada. One of the first urban rebellions in the U.S. took place in Detroit in 1833 when a couple which fled from enslavement in Kentucky were jailed in efforts to send them back into bondage.

The plight of Thornton and Lucie Blackburn prompted the African American community in Detroit at the time to forcefully liberate the couple and arrange transport to Canada. After 1833, the British-controlled territories were declared free from slavery. The Blackburns later took up residence in Toronto where they became a self-sufficient couple operating their own transportation business in the city.

In later years, Mary Ann Shadd Cary represented a prime example of the role of African people in Ontario during the period of the mid-to-late 19th century. Shadd became a journalist, publishing the Provincial Freeman which advocated the abolition of slavery as well as African emigration from areas where they were endangered of being placed in bondage.

One source on the political organizing work being done during this period points out:

“In 1823, Mary Ann Shadd was born in Delaware to a free couple. Shadd is recognized today as the first Black female editor in the United States and, after emigrating as an adult, one of the first female journalists in Canada. After the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, Shadd and one of her brothers left the U.S. to move to Canada. Encouraged by Henry and Mary Bibb—two active attendants at the 1854 Emigration Convention—Shadd later became a teacher. After doing so, she successfully established a school for Black children and, in 1852, published several pro-emigration booklets. One of her most well-known pieces is titled A Plea for Emigration: or Notes of Canada West, which encouraged her Black readers to emigrate to Canada. The year before, Shadd has been the only woman present at the first Convention of Colored Freemen.” (https://coloredconventions.org/emigration-debate/women-involvement/mary-ann-shadd/)

These developments were by no means isolated. Others advocated a return to the African continent such as Edward Wilmot Blyden (1832-1912) who eventually moved to Liberia and Sierra Leone while working for many years as a journalist, educator, diplomat and politician. The Republic of Liberia was established formally in 1847. Nonetheless, the American Colonization Society (ACS) remained controversial among Africans in the U.S. during the antebellum period. (https://www.blackpast.org/global-african-history/people-global-african-history/edward-wilmot-blyden-1832-1912/)

Due to the prevalence of institutional racism, many whites believed that African Americans legally manumitted from enslavement could not live a productive existence in the U.S. Earlier Sierra Leone, also in West Africa, was established after the conclusion of the Revolutionary War for those who fought alongside the British who had promised freedom in the aftermath of the conflict.

However, the experiences of Shadd Cary embodied the contradictions and rigorous debate among the African American people. This same above-mentioned document emphasized:

“Much like her father, who edited the Liberator alongside William Lloyd Garrison, Shadd was inspired to create her own newspaper in order to pursue her pro-emigration and abolitionist goals. She did just that, publishing the first issue of Provincial Freeman on March 25, 1854. Shadd did not place her name under the masthead of the paper, ‘thus concealing the paper’s editorship.’ In addition to including her own articles (without crediting herself) in the paper, Shadd incorporated the work of other influential abolitionists and pro-emigrationists such as Martin Delany. Although Mary Ann Shadd was not in attendance at the 1854 Emigration Convention, it can be said that her pro-emigration pieces in the Provincial Freeman were incredibly influential as associated textual pieces engaging the convention event. The following year, Shadd maneuvered her way into the 1855 Colored Convention. Although her emigration ideas clashed with some delegates, Shadd presented a speech at the convention. It proved convincing to the delegates so much so that they granted permission to extend her speaking time.”

Nevertheless, when the Civil War erupted in the U.S. in 1861, Shadd and her husband, Thomas F. Cary, returned to the U.S. Shadd worked as a recruiting officer for the Union army encouraging African Americans to enlist to fight for the end of slavery. After the war, Shadd studied law and became one of the first women lawyers to practice in the U.S.

African Labor and the Civil War

At the beginning of the Civil War in April 1861, there were nearly 4.5 million Africans living in the U.S., 90 percent of whom were enslaved. The profits accrued from the theft of Indigenous land, the importation of enslaved African labor and its super-exploitation economically benefited the slavocracy and the burgeoning industrial capitalists largely based in the northern states.

The contradictions between the systems of slavery and industrial capitalism underlined the outbreak of the Civil War. The valuable enslaved labor of African people served as the basis for the prosperity and social status of the planters.

Dr. W.E.B. Du Bois during the Great Depression in 1935 published his seminal work entitled “Black Reconstruction in America, 1860-1880.” In the first chapter of this book, The Black Worker, Du Bois puts forward his thesis which emphasizes that the African agricultural proletariat played a central role in the defeat of the Confederacy. 

Du Bois writes saying:

“It was thus the black worker, as founding stone of a new economic system in the nineteenth century and for the modern world, who brought civil war in America. He was its underlying cause, in spite of every effort to base the strife upon union and national power.” (https://files.libcom.org/files/black_reconstruction_an_essay_toward_a_history_of_.pdf)

After the Civil War and the failure of Federal Reconstruction by 1877, African Americans were thrust back into a social situation reminiscent of the antebellum period. It would take nearly another century to regain those rights granted through the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments to the Constitution as well as the Civil Rights Acts passed between 1866-1875. 

Today in the third decade of the 21st century the right to the universal franchise, access to public accommodations and education remain contested in the U.S. Consequently, the issues which drove the country into a civil war could resurface threatening the very existence of the bourgeois democratic system which has developed since the latter decades of the previous century. 

Impact of the Haitian Revolution on Resistance History

African American scholars have made a monumental contribution to the discovery and analysis of the struggles against enslavement and colonialism

By Abayomi Azikiwe, Editor, Pan-African News Wire

Friday February 2, 2024

African American History Month Series No. 1

This year represents the 98th anniversary of the launching of “Negro History Week” in 1926, later named Black History Month in 1976, after the federal government issued a proclamation in recognition of the contributions of African American people under the administration of President Gerald R. Ford.

The commemoration was founded by Dr. Carter G. Woodson, a pioneering scholar and public intellectual who founded the Journal of Negro History in 1915 and the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History the following year, 1916. 

Woodson’s origins within the African American working class is a demonstration of the determination to seek formal education in the aftermath of the Civil War and Reconstruction in the South and other regions of the United States. Although Woodson came from humble beginnings and worked as a coal miner in West Virginia, he was able to put himself through High school, college and was eventually awarded a doctoral degree in history from Harvard University.

After teaching high school and college in Washington, D.C., Woodson became an independent scholar establishing the aforementioned journal, historical association and week of activities related to the achievements of African Africans and people of African descent. He established a headquarters in the nation’s capital while traveling extensively to deliver lectures in churches, community centers, schools and colleges.

Although the historical studies of African enslavement, rebellions, the Civil War, Reconstruction and the Jim Crow eras were dominated by Southern segregationists and their sympathizers, an entirely different approach to these periods in history were soon advanced by African American and African Caribbean researchers and writers. Woodson was representative of a cadre of scholars which focused on the necessity of reversing institutional racism and national oppression in the U.S. and other geopolitical regions of the world.

The Haitian Revolution and Its Significance: Contributions of T.G. Steward

Between 1791-1804, the African population of Haiti rose up in a revolutionary war to end enslavement and declare themselves as an independent republic. These developments on this Caribbean island-nation known as Hispaniola struck fear in the slaveocracy within other areas throughout the Antilles along with South and North America.

In the first volume and issue of the Journal of Negro History founded by Woodson, there was a book review of a study published by Theophilus Gould Steward (1843-1924) in 1914 entitled “The Haitian Revolution, 1791 to 1804”. The review was written by Jessie Redmond Fauset, African American woman editor and literary figure, who says that:

“Although most of the book is naturally concerned with the revolutionary period, the author brings his account up to date by giving a very brief resume of the history of Haiti from 1804 to the present time (1915). This history is marked by the frequent occurrence of assassinations and revolutions, but the reader will not allow himself to be affected by disgust or prejudiced at these facts particularly when he is reminded, as Mr. Steward says, ‘that the political history of Haiti does not differ greatly from that of the majority of South American republics, nor does it differ widely even from that of France.’” (file:///C:/Users/panaf/Downloads/2713518.pdf)

Steward was born in Bridgeton, New Jersey in 1843. He was educated and later entered the ministry in 1864 and traveled to South Carolina in the immediate aftermath of the Civil War where under the direction of African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME) Bishop Daniel Payne, he worked to establish AME churches in South Carolina and Georgia. During the period from 1882-1891 Steward conducted missionary work in Haiti. 

By 1891 he had entered the U.S. military as one of the few African Americans in the officer corps. He would serve in the 25th Infantry Regiment working as a military chaplain and educator. Steward also held several posts in the Western U.S. and the Philippines.

He retired in 1907 at the age of 64. After touring Europe with his second wife, Dr. Susan McKinney, a pioneering African American physician, author and professor. Later Steward and McKinney-Steward would settle in Ohio where they worked at the Wilberforce University.

The work of the Stewards was instrumental in providing education and medical care to African Americans only one and two generations removed from enslavement. Their interests in the developments of Haiti were a clear reflection of the international and Pan-African outlooks of many during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Anna Julia Cooper on the Haitian Revolution and Pan-Africanism

Born during 1858 in Raleigh, North Carolina, Anna Julia Cooper, became an advocate for the education of African American women, equal rights for women and the unity of African people around the world. She was a participant in the 1893 Chicago Congress of Representative Women as well as the 1900 Pan-African Conference held in London. 

Despite widespread institutional racism and sexism, Cooper was able to earn her bachelor’s degree (St. Augustine College), masters (Oberlin College) and a Ph.D. from the Sorbonne in Paris. Her dissertation defended in 1925 in France was later translated, published and entitled “Slavery and the French Revolutionists”.

One source on the significance of Cooper’s writing on the Haitian Revolution noted that:

“In her 1925 doctoral dissertation at the University of Paris, African American scholar Anna Julia Cooper (1858-1964) examined the relations between the 18th century revolutionists in Paris and the representatives and inhabitants of the richest French colony, San Domingue. She argued that the legalized slave trade became a critical issue in the struggle over the rights of man during the French Revolution and that when the revolutionists of Paris deflected the question of slavery in San Domingue, the people of France lost the opportunity to escalate their liberty and their equality. Cooper insisted that to understand the French Revolution and its repercussions, it is necessary to add the dimension of race. Historian Frances R. Keller has made this unique work available in English. Through her interpretive essays, Keller places Cooper's dissertation in the context of her life and scholarship. Keller also provides an essential historical look at the international events that led up to the bloody revolutions in France and Haiti.” (https://gwonline.unc.edu/node/7602)

Cooper’s scholarly and political work has gained greater recognition over the last decade. She lived to be 105 years-old, making her transition in 1964, after serving many years as an adult educator in Washington, D.C. committed to the literacy and professional training of the African American people. Her book entitled “A Voice from the South: By a Black Woman of the South”, published in 1892, has been hailed in recent years as a major contribution to African American Feminist Thought. (https://docsouth.unc.edu/church/cooper/cooper.html)

C.LR. James and the Black Jacobins

Cyril Lionel Robert James was born in 1901 in the Caribbean island-nation of Trinidad and Tobago. During his upbringing he developed a keen interest in literature, political theory and historical studies.

James migrated to Britain during the early 1930s where he became involved in the socialist movement. Later he joined Leon Trotsky in efforts to build an alternative to the post-1924 events in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) under the leadership of Joseph Stalin. 

After the October 1935 invasion of Abyssinia by the Italian fascist government of Benito Mussolini, James worked with his childhood friend from Trinidad, Malcolm Nurse, then known as George Padmore, where they built political opposition to the occupation of this Horn of Africa state. By 1935, Padmore had broken with the Communist International over ideological differences. However, along with James, they remained committed socialists.

In 1937-38 while in London, James published three books: “A History of Negro Revolt”, “World Revolution from 1917-1936” and “Black Jacobins”, a study on the Haitian Revolution. Perhaps his best-known work, Black Jacobins, prefigured the national liberation movements which emerged full-blown after the conclusion of World War II. (https://politicaleducation.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/CLR_James_The_Black_Jacobins.pdf)

James remained active after traveling and living in the U.S. between 1938-1953. After his deportation in the early 1950s, his influence grew during the 1960s and 1970s. He would later return and teach at several universities in the U.S. advancing his theories on Pan-Africanism and World Revolution.

Although James distanced himself from Trotskyism during the late 1940s and early 1950s, he maintained that the political parties and popular movements which led the independence efforts in Africa, Asia and Latin America from the 1940s to the 1970s confirmed his ideas on the central role of mass struggles in the transformation of international affairs. James eventually returned to Britain in the 1980s where he died in London in 1989 at the age of 88.

The work of these African American and African Caribbean scholar-activists involving Haiti illustrates the central role of resistance within the historical trajectory of the world. Their independent research and reinterpretation of the periods of enslavement and colonialism provide a working alternative to the ideas advanced by imperialism which justifies its existence as an exploitative and oppressive system.     

Blinken Tour of Africa Highlights Failed War Policy of the United States

Like the states in West Asia, the Biden White House has no diplomatic successes

By Abayomi Azikiwe, Editor, Pan-African News Wire

Tuesday February 13, 2024

Geostrategic Analysis

A recent four-nation trip by United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken was marked by efforts to denigrate China and Russia as development and security partners of the African Union (AU) member states.

Blinken traveled to the Cape Verde Islands, Ivory Coast, Nigeria and Angola from January 21-26.

Despite the public posturing and rhetoric of the State Department, many governments and more importantly the masses of the people have opposed Washington’s foreign policy related to the Ukraine war and the continuing support for Israel as it lays waste to the Gaza Strip. After two years of sabotaging any attempt to reach a negotiated settlement between Moscow and Kiev, President Joe Biden is demanding more money from U.S. taxpayers to continue arm shipments and other material assistance to Ukraine. The same situation holds true for the Palestinians as the Biden administration pours in military equipment to facilitate the genocidal program in the Gaza Strip.

African Union (AU) Commission Chair Moussa Faki Mahamat has made repeated statements calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. These pleas for peace have been rejected by the U.S. and its allies in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). South Africa filed a lawsuit against Tel Aviv in December where it charged the Zionist state with genocide. The second hearing in this case filed at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in the Netherlands will take place in late February. 

Although the Biden White House ridiculed the South African lawsuit against Israel as lacking merit, the case was accepted by the ICJ which ruled in the initial hearing that the charges of genocide against Israel were plausible. A series of measures were recommended by the World Court, yet Tel Aviv has continued its onslaught in Gaza resulting in the deaths of over 28,000, the wounding of thousands more and the displacement of the entire population of 2.3 million Palestinians.

Amid these policy differences with many AU states, Blinken during his trip emphasized a supposed partnership based upon mutual interests. However, the sordid history of African enslavement, colonial and neo-colonial domination by imperialism was never mentioned in the press release issued by State Department spokesman Matthew Miller on January 18.

Miller emphasized on behalf of the Biden administration that:

“Throughout the trip, the Secretary will highlight how the United States has accelerated the U.S.-Africa partnership since the U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit, including in areas such as climate, food, and health security.  He will also emphasize our future-focused economic partnership, and how the United States is investing in infrastructure in Africa to boost two-way trade, create jobs at home and on the continent, and help Africa compete in the global marketplace. Additionally, the Secretary will advance security partnerships based on shared values such as respect for human rights, promotion of democracy, and expansion of the rule of law.  He will reaffirm U.S. commitment to our coastal West African partners through the Strategy to Prevent Conflict and Promote Stability, U.S. partnership with the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) to address regional challenges, and U.S. efforts to support African leadership in de-escalating tensions and adopting diplomatic solutions to the conflict in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo.” (https://www.state.gov/secretary-blinkens-travel-to-cabo-verde-cote-divoire-nigeria-and-angola/)

Historically much of the trade spoken of by the State Department has been highly disadvantageous to African nations. The notion that bilateral relations with the U.S. is based upon respect for human rights and democracy contradicts the longtime unwarranted interference in the internal affairs of African states. 

The presence of Pentagon military outposts and troops on the continent has only worsened the overall security situation. In West Africa, the U.S. has been present in Mali, Guinea, Niger and Burkina Faso through the Africa Command (AFRICOM). Nonetheless, these states have undergone military coups over the last four years due to the unsustainable neo-colonial system of governance. 

Cape Verde and Ivory Coast

Blinken made his first stop in the Cape Verde Islands located approximately 400 miles off the coast of Senegal. Several years ago, the U.S. provided funding for the refurbishing of the port at Praia in which the Secretary of State visited.

Nevertheless, while enroute to meet with high level governmental officials, the top U.S. envoy could have not avoided the presidential palace which has been enhanced and modernized with assistance of the People’s Republic of China. In addition, the Congress Hall and governmental headquarters have new buildings constructed by Beijing. (https://forumchinaplp.org.mo/en/economic_trade/view/645)

After leaving Cape Verde, Blinken stopped over in Ivory Coast, where 12 years before the U.S. in cooperation with France, overthrew the government of former President Laurent Gbagbo who had defied the neo-colonial directives of Paris. After the installation of a pro-western president in Abidjan during 2011, elements within the military remained dissatisfied over the situation inside the country.

However, unlike other regional states, the military was not able to intervene by seizing power from the civilian leadership which is by no means “democratic.” President Alassane Ouattara engineered the change in the Ivorian constitution to allow for him to serve an additional term of office.

Blinken praised Ouattara for the Ivorian government’s stance in opposition to the upheaval and military coup in Niger last July 26. Although the U.S. had initially encouraged an armed intervention by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) to reimpose the administration of ousted President Mohammad Bazoum, a close ally of Paris and Washington, public opposition across the region resulted in a rethinking of the invasion plans. 

Nigeria and Angola

The third country visited by Blinken was Nigeria which has the largest economy on the continent due to its vast oil and natural gas resources. If the invasion of Niger was to occur, it would be Nigeria that supplies the bulk of the troops.

However, even President Bola Tinubu’s party, the All-Progressives Congress (APC), would not go along with the ECOWAS imperialist-engineered intervention in neighboring Niger. The people of northern Nigeria and Niger share languages and economic interests. Nigeria is the current chair of ECOWAS. 

Underlining the visits to Ivory Coast and Nigeria is a pledge by the White House to bolster a security pact with several West African states. Al Jazeera said of this project, “Blinken nonetheless promised to boost cooperation on the ground with the Ivory Coast, largely the training of security forces. He said the US would provide an additional $45m to West African nations as part of a plan to battle instability, bringing total funding under the year-old program to nearly $300m.” (https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/1/23/blinken-hails-ivory-coast-fight-against-armed-groups-on-west-africa-tour)

Blinken’s last visit on this tour was to Angola where oil is a major export. Angola also has close economic ties to China. 

For the first 18-years of Angolan independence (1975-1993) the U.S. refused to recognize its government. In 1975, on the verge of its independence from Portugal, the U.S. under the administration of President Gerald Ford, deployed the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to Angola to assist a rival pro-western armed grouping in preventing the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) from consolidating it power base. 

It was the Republic of Cuba and the former Soviet Union which backed the MPLA government in its war against the apartheid South Africa which staged numerous invasions and occupations in Angola. The defeat of the racist South African Defense Forces (SADF) in early 1988 paved the way for the liberation of the Republic of Namibia in 1990 along with the release of political prisoners in South Africa including the first democratically elected President Nelson Mandela.

By April-May 1994, multi-party elections had been held bringing President Mandela and the African National Congress (ANC) to power. The ANC has maintained its leading role in government over the last three decades.

A press release issued by the State Department on the Blinken visit discussed the U.S.-Angola relationship as a partnership in trade and security. However, there was no mention of the years-long damage done to Angola by successive administrations in Washington during the post-independence period from the mid-1970s to the early 1990s. (https://www.state.gov/the-united-states-and-angola-partnering-for-prosperity/)

U.S. Foreign Policy Breeds War and Instability

Since the beginning of the Biden administration in early 2021, there have been a series of disastrous foreign policy developments from the calamitous withdrawal from Afghanistan, the instigation of the special military operation by the Russian Federation in Ukraine, to a series of anti-western popular uprisings in the Sahel states in West Africa and the genocidal siege on Gaza. Since October, the White House has been pushing the Congress to approve yet another $106 billion to feed the war machine in West Asia, the Asia-Pacific, Eastern Europe and on the Southern border with Mexico and other Latin American states.

Blinken has been jetting across West Asia and Africa in failed attempts to shore up the image of U.S. imperialism internationally. Nonetheless, with the rising opposition to the AFRICOM presence on the continent to the demands for an immediate end to the blanket bombing and occupation of the Gaza Strip, billions around the globe have nothing other than opprobrium for Washington and Wall Street.

Instead of seeking to enact a permanent ceasefire in Palestine, the White House is spreading the war regionally by bombing Syria, Iraq and Yemen. Resistance forces in West Asia have stated repeatedly that they will continue their attacks on U.S., British and Israeli interests until the current crisis in Palestine is resolved. 

In Africa as well, U.S. diplomacy has not achieved any victories. Undoubtedly in years to come, a reconfigured system of international relations will come into being creating the political atmosphere for a sustainable peace and genuine cooperation among peoples.  

Pan-African Journal: Special Worldwide Radio Broadcast Hosted by Abayomi Azikiwe, PANW Editor, for Sun. Feb. 25, 2024

Listen to the Sun. Feb. 25, 2024 special edition of the Pan-African Journal: Worldwide Radio Broadcast hosted by Abayomi Azikiwe, editor of the Pan-African News Wire. 

To hear the entire podcast of this episode go the this URL: Pan-African Journal: Special Worldwide Radio Broadcast 02/25 by Pan African Radio Network | Politics (blogtalkradio.com)

The program features our regular PANW report with dispatches on obstruction of the prisoner exchange by Tel Aviv during talks in Paris; an individual set themselves on fire outside the Israeli embassy in Washington, D.C.; the Kenya government is attempting to build unity in the East African Community; and violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo has put Uganda on alert. 

In the second and third hours we continue our African American History Month commemoration with a tribute to Malcolm X (El Hajj Malik Shabazz) on the 59th anniversary of his martyrdom. 

Pan-African Journal: Worldwide Radio Broadcast Hosted by Abayomi Azikiwe, PANW Editor, for Sat. Feb. 24, 2024

Listen to the Sat. Feb. 24, 2024 edition of the Pan-African Journal: Worldwide Radio Broadcast hosted by Abayomi Azikiwe, editor of the Pan-African News Wire. 

To hear the podcast of this episode just click on this link: Pan-African Journal: Worldwide Radio Broadcast 02/24 by Pan African Radio Network | Politics (blogtalkradio.com)

The program features our regular PANW report with dispatches on the statements made by the Republic of Namibia on the parallels between the early 20th century genocide in their country and the Palestinian situation; the South African government is calling for worldwide testimony related to the case against Tel Aviv in the International Court of Justice; the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) has lifted sanctions against Niger; and Russia is assessing the special military operations in Ukraine on the second anniversary of the war. 

In the second hour we continue our focus on African American History Month commemorating the 59th anniversary of the martyrdom of Malcolm X (El Hajj Malik Shabazz). 

Pan-African Journal: Special Worldwide Radio Broadcast Hosted by Abayomi Azikiwe, PANW Editor, for Fri. Feb. 23, 2024

Listen to the Fri. Feb. 23, 2024 special edition of the Pan-African Journal: Worldwide Radio Broadcast hosted by Abayomi Azikiwe, editor of the Pan-African News Wire.

To hear this program go to this link: Pan-African Journal: Special Worldwide Radio Broadcast 02/23 by Pan African Radio Network | Politics (blogtalkradio.com) 

The program features our PANW report with dispatches on the impact of the Palestine solidarity movement on the Democratic Party primaries; Lebanon resistance forces continue to target the IOF; migrants in Tunisia are awaiting a decision by Albania on resettlement; and Senegal President Macky Sall says he will leave office by April. 

We continue our African American History Month programming with a tribute to Malcolm X (El Hajj Malik Shabazz) on the 59th anniversary of his martyrdom. 

We will feature speeches and a press conference from Jan. and Feb. 1965.

Pan-African Journal: Special Worldwide Radio Broadcast Hosted by Abayomi Azikiwe, PANW Editor, for Thurs. Feb. 22, 2024

Listen to the Thurs. Feb. 22, 2024 special edition of the Pan-African Journal: Worldwide Radio Broadcast hosted by Abayomi Azikiwe, editor of the Pan-African News Wire. 

To hear the complete podcast of this episode go the following link: Pan-African Journal: Special Worldwide Radio Broadcast 02/22 by Pan African Radio Network | Politics (blogtalkradio.com)

This episode features our regular PANW report with dispatches on the role of the International Court of Justice in the Palestinian crisis; Somalia and Turkey have signed a security agreement; Burkina Faso represents a new political trend in Africa among the Alliance of Sahel States; and Ghana teachers are protesting the 2-tier pay system. 

In the second and third hours we continue our African American History Month series with a focus on Malcolm X during 1964.

Pan-African Journal: Special Worldwide Radio Broadcast Hosted by Abayomi Azikiwe, PANW Editor, for Sun. Feb. 18, 2024

Listen to the Sun. Feb. 18, 2024 special edition of the Pan-African Journal: Worldwide Radio Broadcast hosted by Abayomi Azikiwe, editor of the Pan-African News Wire. 

To hear the podcast of the entire program go the this URL: Pan-African Journal: Special Worldwide Radio Broadcast 02/18 by Pan African Radio Network | Politics (blogtalkradio.com)

The episode features our regular PANW report with dispatches on the condemnation of Israel by the African Union (AU) at their summit in Ethiopia; fighting is intensifying in Gaza and Khan Younis; Hezbollah took control of an IDF drone; and the Sudanese military factions are now engaging in sabotage. 

In the second and third hours we continue our focus on African American History Month with a segment on the Nat Turner rebellion of 1831. 

Later we look back on the Black Seminole Wars against the United States government during the early decades of the 19th century. 

Finally, we listen to excerpts from an address delivered by African American playwright, journalist and public intellectual Lorraine Hansberry in June 1964 in New York City.

Pan-African Journal: Worldwide Radio Broadcast Hosted by Abayomi Azikiwe, PANW Editor, for Sat. Feb. 17, 2024

Listen to the Sat. Feb. 17, 2024 edition of the Pan-African Journal: Worldwide Radio Broadcast hosted by Abayomi Azikiwe, editor of the Pan-African News Wire. 

To hear the entire program go the following URL: Pan-African Journal: Worldwide Radio Broadcast 02/17 by Pan African Radio Network | Politics (blogtalkradio.com)

This episode features our regular PANW report with dispatches on the Russian military victory in a major stronghold of the Ukrainian forces; the talks mediated by Qatar on the Gaza crisis have stalled; MIT has suspended a student organization for their solidarity work for Palestine; and the United Nations High Court have rejected the motion by South Africa for an emergency measure to halt the IDF assault on Rafah. 

In the second and third hours we continue our focus on African American History Month with segments on Claudia Jones and Dr. Huey P. Newton.

Pan-African Journal: Special Worldwide Radio Broadcast Hosted by Abayomi Azikiwe, PANW Editor, for Fri. Feb. 16, 2024

Listen to the Fri. Feb. 16, 2024 special edition of the Pan-African Journal: Worldwide Radio Broadcast hosted by Abayomi Azikiwe, editor of the Pan-African News Wire. 

To hear the podcast of this episode go the this link: Pan-African Journal: Special Worldwide Radio Broadcast 02/16 by Pan African Radio Network | Politics (blogtalkradio.com)

The program features our regular PANW report with dispatches on the statement made by the Lebanese resistance on the current state of clashes with the IOF; Palestine is continuing to face a worsening war situation; the humanitarian crisis in the Republic of Sudan is being addressed in an international conference in France; and figures are now available for the economic growth of African Union (AU) member-states during the previous year. 

In the second and third hours we listen to a panel discussion on the situation in Palestine.

Pan-African Journal: Special Worldwide Radio Broadcast Hosted by Abayomi Azikiwe, PANW Editor, for Sun. Feb. 11, 2024

Listen to the Sun. Feb. 11, 2024 special edition of the Pan-African Journal: Worldwide Radio Broadcast hosted by Abayomi Azikiwe, editor of the Pan-African News Wire. 

To hear the entire program just click on the following URL: Pan-African Journal: Special Worldwide Radio Broadcast 02/11 by Pan African Radio Network | Politics (blogtalkradio.com)

The episode features our PANW report with dispatches on mass demonstrations in the Kingdom of Morocco demanding that the government cancels its peace agreement with Israel; Egypt says that its 45-year-old accord with Tel Aviv is in jeopardy amid threats by the settler-colonial regime to launch an offensive in Rafah; and Ethiopia is working on its integration into the BRICS Summit. 

In the second hour we listen to a report from Pam Africa on the medical situation involving political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal. 

Later we look at the political damage to the administration of President Joe Biden due to the United States role in Palestine, North Africa and West Asia. 

The Alliance of Sahel States composed of Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger, have announced their withdrawal from the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). 

Finally, we continue our African American History Month series with a rare archival 1970 interview with C.L.R. James on the Haitian Revolution.

Pan-African Journal: Worldwide Radio Broadcast Hosted by Abayomi Azikiwe, PANW Editor, for Sat. Feb. 10, 2024

Listen to the Sat. Feb. 10, 2024 edition of the Pan-African Journal: Worldwide Radio Broadcast  hosted by Abayomi Azikiwe, editor of the Pan-African News Wire. 

To hear the podcast of this program go to the following link: Pan-African Journal: Worldwide Radio Broadcast 02/10 by Pan African Radio Network | Politics (blogtalkradio.com)

The program features our PANW report with dispatches on continuing siege of Gaza in Palestine; the Iran foreign minister says that the Israeli government needs the current war to survive; Georgia police and FBI agents have raided the homes of activists seeking to halt Cop City; and Malawi has dropped visa requirements for people holding, United States, United Kingdom and China passports. In the second hour we listen to an address delivered by South African Minister of International Relations and Cooperation on the situation in Palestine. 

Finally, we listen to excerpts from a lecture delivered by Shirley Graham Du Bois on African history in honor of African American History Month.