Africans started a wave of movements to either unify as Africans to fight the oppression they were dealing with or start to appreciate the beauty and history of the African people. The most important of these movements was undeniably the Pan-Africanist movement, which tried to unify Africans all over the globe in fighting against the oppression they had been dealing with. Educated leaders would unite in fighting against the struggles of slavery, racism and colonialism. A few well known US citizens would push this movement all over the US also. The famous WEB Dubois and Marcus Garvey would push a similar narrative not only in the US but also in Africa in a number of different ways. Dubois would actually visit Ghana to help this movement and would be denied the right to return to America due to his possible communist ties. The most important of these unity conferences would be the 5th Pan-African Congress, which would host a who’s who of important educated Africans, many of which would become leaders of countries soon after, and together these leaders would demand and end to colonies. Other African movements would focus on the general thought process of what it meant to be African. Centuries of being treated as if Africans were ‘less than’ the value of Europeans had a dramatic effect on the mindset of African people. The people had internalized this idea that Africans and African culture was not as good as their European counterparts. So leaders started to counter this narrative with movements aimed at placing more value on African culture and values than people were doing at the time. These movements, which often fall under the name “negritude,” weren’t anti-European but were about loving yourself more. Unfortunately, like the ‘Black is Beautiful’ movement in the United States, they would be misinterpreted to mean something more like ‘black power’ from the Europeans (source: dunningclass).
Colonialism: Western Thirst for Land and Blood
