Global Pan African Conferences

1. The 1st conference was organised in 1900 in London by another West Indian, Sylvester Williams. Not many Africans were there; most were from the western hemisphere, including the American, W.E.B. du Bois.

2. Du Bois was the organiser of the next 4 congresses:

3. 1919 in Paris coinciding with the Peace Conference-57 delegates, English & French.

4. 1921 in two sessions-one in London and then switched to Brussels.

5. 1923 in two sessions-in London and then Lisbon.

Speakers at the Pan-African Congress held in Brussels, Belgium, in 1921. Du Bois is 2nd from right

6. 1927 in New York while there were Africans at these sessions (often they were students studying abroad), the majority were diaspora blacks and leadership was primarily by them.

7. The onset of the depression may be the major reason for the lapse in meetings until the conference in Manchester in 1945, organised by a West Indian lawyer living in London, George Padmore. It was at this conference that Africans came to the fore and in a sense took control of pan-Africanism. Among the delegates were Kwame Nkrumah and Jomo Kenyatta, both of whom had been studying and living abroad for many years. Nkrumah would take control of the movement in the 1950s.