Fighting for our own emancipation—The Fifth Pan-African Congress in Manchester

Plaque commemorating the congress (Pic: Wikimedia commons)

In the months after the end of the Second World War, around 200 socialists and other radicals met at the Fifth Pan-African Congress in Manchester.

The meeting demanded an end to colonial rule in Africa. In 1945, Britain had no intention of giving up its African colonies. Yet 15 years later, much of the British Empire won independence. It was the spirit that emerged in Manchester that drove this push to independence.

Manchester was one of the most multicultural cities in Britain. There were enough black residents with houses to put up delegates from around the world.

At least three delegates would become national leaders at independence—Kwame Nkrumah in Ghana, Jomo Kenyatta in Kenya and Hastings Banda in Malawi.

The walls of the ­meeting hall were decorated with posters reading, “Down with ­trusteeship”—the idea that colonised people needed imperial powers to look after them. They showed solidarity with black people facing apartheid racism in the United States and opposed the colour bar in Britain.

Other slogans referred to struggle in Palestine, “Arabs and Jews Unite against British Imperialism”. They declared “No to antisemitism”. And featured the Karl Marx quote, “Labour with a white skin cannot emancipate itself while labour with a black skin is branded.”

The congress declarations accepted that there would be no change without mass struggle and social change across the globe.

Its co-chair Amy Ashwood Garvey had been active in Britain since 1932, after organising in both Jamaica and the US. She said, “Black peoples supported by the semi-colonial people in America and millions of other people are determined to emancipate themselves.”

The other co-chair was the great US activist WEB Du Bois, who had been central to the organisation of earlier congresses.

Other ­attendees included Manchester boxer and trade unionist Len Johnson and Alma LaBadie, who campaigned for the rights of mixed heritage children after the war.

She said that people in Britain were “entirely ignorant of the conditions under which people live in the lands where their flag is flown—disgusting conditions which would surely appal them if they knew.”

It was the most radical ­Pan-African Congress because of this pedigree and how it fitted with the world situation. It had far more African delegates than earlier gatherings.

A relatively respectable Pan-African Conference had taken place in London in 1901, demanding more rights for ­colonised Africans.

However the bigger ­movement emerged at the end of the First World War, when WEB Du Bois called the First Pan-African Congress in 1919.

The war had been fought under slogans of freedom for oppressed nations. But the colonial powers had used the war to expand their territory—­particularly in the Middle East. The congress took place in Paris, where the peace ­negotiations were taking place.

Three congresses took place in rapid succession, in 1919, 1921 and 1923. A fourth took place in the US in 1927.

The international ­revolutionary movement after the 1917 Russian Revolution created a new and more ­radical world picture. The newly formed Communist International—or Comintern—called for immediate independence for colonised countries. It drew mass support from ­colonised peoples worldwide.

Meanwhile Ramsay MacDonald, Britain’s first Labour prime minister, promised that Labour’s ­imperialism was “not of the aggressive or the bragging order”. But he confirmed he would maintain the empire.

The conference in Manchester was organised by George Padmore, who had been working closely with another Trinidadian Marxist, CLR James.

Padmore had previously been the key organiser in the Comintern-organised International Trade Union Committee of Negro Workers.

But he split from it in 1933, angered at the direction the Comintern was taking. It toned down its criticism of colonialism to make it easier to ally with imperial powers against Nazi Germany.

In London, Padmore worked with James, who was extending Marxist theory on race, and emphasising the self-activity of the oppressed.

He became a leading light in Pan-African struggles in Britain because of his central role in organising protests against the invasion of Abyssinia—now Ethiopia—by Mussolini’s fascist Italy. Though his ideas were key to its organisation, James missed the congress as he was in the US.

The congress gathered while the victorious powers were busily attempting to shape the new world order after the war.

The United Nations was launched in San Francisco in the same month. But while it talked of self-determination, it had a strict policy of non-interference in the affairs of member states including their empires. Du Bois described it as a plan “to preserve imperial power and even extend and fortify it”.

While the Pan-African Congress was one of the most radical, other organisations challenged the complacent reassertion of imperial power. The League of Coloured Peoples and the All Colonial Peoples’ Conference had met in London.

In September, the ­Pan-African Federation, which was central to organising the event, had sent an open letter to prime minister Clement Attlee.

It read, “We wish to welcome Labour’s great victory, for which we, as colonials, have hoped and worked alongside Britain’s workers.” But it continued, “To condemn the imperialism of Germany, Japan and Italy while condoning that of Britain would be more than dishonest.”

For all its reforms at home, Attlee’s 1945 Labour government was determined to bolster imperial control.

It sent troops to put down nationalist rebellions in British colonies including Hong Kong and Malaya—now part of Malaysia, and even French Vietnam and Dutch Indonesia.

The leaders of Britain and the US had issued the Atlantic Charter in 1941 stating that their war aims included “the right of all peoples to choose the form of government under which they will live”.

But British prime minister Winston Churchill explained that this self-determination only applied to the European nations. Those people who “owe allegiance to the British Crown” were “quite a separate problem”.

The Pan-African Congress sent greetings to the nationalist rebels in Vietnam and Indonesia.

In the run-up to the ­congress, a general strike by some 150,000 workers had paralysed Nigeria for 52 days. Workers were ­demanding a pay rise to ­offset massive increases in the cost of living.

Government employees were particularly incensed by the fact that such a rise had been given to white people only. Nigerian trade union leader AS Coker was at the congress sharing this experience. Though the colonial government brought back wartime regulations to crush the strike, it was at least partly successful.

Freedom had to be fought for, whether through protests and boycotts as in Ghana or through a general strike and a guerrilla war as in Kenya.

Even though Britain ­militarily won the war in Kenya, the colonial authorities ­realised that they could not overcome such resistance across the empire. By the early 1960s, most African colonies achieved independence.

An internal colonial office memo suggested the congress was “sure to be more or less mischievous in intention, all the more so since Mr Padmore is involved with it.” But the state decided it was “politically ­expedient” not to block travel.

There have been three more Pan African Congresses, in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, in 1974, Kampala, Uganda in 1994 and Johannesburg, South Africa, in 2014.

But despite being able to take place in Africa, they were less ambitious in what they believed was possible. They tended to restrict themselves to national development.

The 1945 congress declared, “The object of imperialist powers is to exploit. By ­granting the right to colonial peoples to govern themselves that object is defeated.” It went on to add, “Your weapons—the Strike and the Boycott—are invincible.”

The movements that these leaders pushed led to a major defeat for imperialism. Unfortunately they became caught up in the idea of building national economies. These were open to new kinds of imperial exploitation from organisations like the IMF lending body and the World Bank.

Today, the poor across the Global South are under constant attack. But they are ­fighting back. So-called Gen Z ­rebellions have sprung up in 2025 from Kenya and Madagascar to Mexico and Nepal.

The Fifth Pan-African Congress’s call for collective action and internationalism remains as powerful as ever.