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