Tradition

Pan-Africanism

Overview

Pan-Africanism is a movement that aims to encourage and strengthen bonds of solidarity between all indigenous peoples of Africa along with all peoples of African descent. The belief extends beyond continental Africans with a substantial support base among the African diaspora in the Americas and Europe.

Based on the belief that unity is vital to economic, social, and political progress, it aims to unify and uplift people of African ancestry. It was in the twentieth century that Pan-Africanism emerged as a distinct political movement initially formed and led by people from the Diaspora (people of African heritage living outside of the Continent). In 1900, the Trinidadian barrister Henry Williams organized the first Pan-African conference to "protest stealing of lands in the colonies, racial discrimination and deal with other issues of interest to Blacks".

At its core, Pan-Africanism is a belief that "African people, both on the continent and in the diaspora, share not merely a common history, but a common destiny." Pan-Africanism posits a sense of a shared historical fate for Africans in the Americas, the West Indies, and on the continent.

Pan-African thought influenced the establishment of the Organisation of African Unity (since succeeded by the African Union) in 1963. The African Union Commission has its seat in Addis Ababa and the Pan-African Parliament has its seat in Midrand, Johannesburg.

Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).

Possible passages

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Thus “individualism” was born, a theory which endowed singular persons in isolation from any associations, except those which they deliberately formed for their own ends, with native or natural rights. The revolt against old and limiting associations was converted, intellectually, into the doctrine of independence of any and all associations.
John Dewey, The public and its problems
Close in meaning to Pan-Africanism; the term itself is not named.
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It is primarily African fetishism, a cult form which is apparently independent of totemism, that has given its characteristic stamp to the conception of the fetish. Among the Soudan negroes, fetishes generally consist of artificially fashioned wooden objects, not infrequently bearing a grimacing likeness of a human face. As regards the possession of magical powers, however, they do not differ from the so-called…
Wilhelm Max Wundt, Elements of Folk Psychology Outline of a Psychological History of the Development of Mankind
Close in meaning to Pan-Africanism; the term itself is not named.
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There is our rightful home; from that land did Dardanus come." That Atlas came from Africa, the mountain called by his name, which stands in that continent, bears witness; and Orosius says that it is in Africa in his description of the world, where he writes: "Its boundary is Mount Atlas, and the islands which are called 'the happy isles.'" "Its"--that is, "of Africa," of which he was speaking.[211]
R. W. Church, Dante. An essay. To which is added a translation of De Monarchia.
States what Pan-Africanism is.
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Philosophers who discussed Pan-Africanism

Frantz Fanon

Related ideas

Place in the tradition

Part of Philosophy.

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