Portal:Pan-Africanism

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Introduction

Welcome to the Pan-Africanism portal!
Bienvenue sur le portail panafricanisme!
The Pan-African flag, designed by the UNIA and formally adopted on August 13, 1920.
Marcus Garvey (17 August 1887 – 10 June 1940) : A prominent Pan-Africanist. In this 1922 picture, Garvey is shown in a military uniform as the "Provisional President of Africa" during a parade on the opening day of the annual Convention of the Negro Peoples of the World at Lenox Avenue in Harlem, New York City.

Pan-Africanism is a worldwide movement that aims to encourage and strengthen bonds of solidarity between all indigenous peoples and diasporas of African ancestry. Based on a common goal dating back to the Atlantic slave trade, the movement extends beyond continental Africans with a substantial support base among the African diaspora in the Americas and Europe.

Pan-Africanism can be said to have its origins in the struggles of the African people against enslavement and colonization and this struggle may be traced back to the first resistance on slave ships—rebellions and suicides—through the constant plantation and colonial uprisings and the "Back to Africa" movements of the 19th century. Based on the belief that unity is vital to economic, social, and political progress, it aims to "unify and uplift" people of African ancestry. (Full article...)

Selected article

The Organisation of African Unity (OAU; French: Organisation de l'unité africaine (OUA)) was established on 25 May 1963 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia with 32 signatory governments. It was disbanded on 9 July 2002 by its last chairperson, South African President Thabo Mbeki, and replaced by the African Union (AU). Some of the key aims of the OAU were to encourage political and economic integration among member states, and to eradicate colonialism and neo-colonialism from the African continent. Although it did achieve some success, there were also differences of opinion as to how that was going to be achieved.

Selected biography

Frances Cress Welsing
Welsing receives Community Award at National Black LUV Festival on September 21, 2008
Born
Frances Luella Cress

(1935-03-18)March 18, 1935
DiedJanuary 2, 2016(2016-01-02) (aged 80)
Alma materAntioch College (B.S.),
Howard University (M.D.)
OccupationPhysician
Known forThe Isis Papers: The Keys to the Colors (1991)

Frances Cress Welsing (née Cress; March 18, 1935 – January 2, 2016) was an American Afrocentrist and psychiatrist. Her 1970 essay, The Cress Theory of Color-Confrontation and Racism (White Supremacy), offered her interpretation on the origins of what she described as white supremacy culture.

She was the author of The Isis Papers: The Keys to the Colors (1991). Welsing caused controversy after she said that homosexuality among African-Americans was a ploy by white males to decrease the black population.

Selected history

Ghana Empire
Wagadou
c. 700–c. 1240
The Ghana Empire at its greatest extent
The Ghana Empire at its greatest extent
CapitalKoumbi Saleh
Common languagesSoninke, Malinke, Mande
Religion
African traditional religion, Islam
GovernmentMonarchy
Ghana 
• 700
Kaya Magan Cissé
• 790s
Majan Dyabe Cisse
• 1040–1062
Ghana Bassi
• 1203–1235
Soumaba Cisse
Historical eraMiddle Ages
• Established
c. 700
• Conquered by Sosso/Submitted to the Mali Empire
c. 1240
Area
1067 est.1,600 km2 (620 sq mi)
Preceded by
Succeeded by
Djenné-Djenno
Mali Empire
Today part of

The Ghana Empire (c. 700 until c. 1240), (Ghana or Ga'na being the title of its ruler), was located in the area of present-day southeastern Mauritania and western Mali. Complex societies based on trans-Saharan trade with salt and gold had existed in the region since ancient times, but the introduction of the camel to the western Sahara in the 3rd century A.D. opened the way to great changes in the area that became the Ghana Empire. By the time of the Muslim conquest of North Africa in the 7th century the camel had changed the ancient, more irregular trade routes into a trade network running from Morocco to the Niger river. The Ghana Empire grew rich from this increased trans-Saharan trade in gold and salt, allowing for larger urban centres to develop. The traffic furthermore encouraged territorial expansion to gain control over the different trade-routes.

When Ghana's ruling dynasty began remains uncertain; it is mentioned for the first time in written records by Muḥammad ibn Mūsā al-Khwārizmī in 830. In the 11th century the Cordoban scholar Abuof travelled to the region and gave a detailed description of the kingdom. He claimed that the Ghana could "put 200,000 men into the field, more than 40,000 of them archers", and noted they had cavalry forces as well.

As the empire declined it finally became a vassal of the rising Mali Empire at some point in the 13th century. When the Gold Coast in 1957 became the first country in sub-Saharan Africa to regain its independence from colonial rule, it renamed itself in honor of the long-gone empire.

Selected culture

The traditional African religions (or traditional beliefs and practices of African people) are a set of highly diverse beliefs that include various ethnic religions. Generally, these traditions are oral rather than scriptural, include belief in a supreme creator, belief in spirits, veneration of the dead, use of magic and traditional medicine.

Adherents of traditional religions in Sub-Saharan Africa are distributed among 43 countries and are estimated to number over 100 million. Although the majority of Africans are adherents of Christianity or Islam, African people often combine the practice of their traditional belief with the practice of Abrahamic religions. The two Abrahamic religions are widespread across Africa, though mostly concentrated in different areas. They have replaced indigenous African religions, but are often adapted to African cultural contexts and belief systems.

West and Central African religious practices generally manifest themselves in communal ceremonies or divinatory rites in which members of the community, overcome by force (or ashe, nyama, etc.), are excited to the point of going into meditative trance in response to rhythmic or driving drumming or singing. One religious ceremony practiced in Gabon and Cameroon is the Okuyi, practiced by several Bantu ethnic groups. In this state, depending upon the region, drumming or instrumental rhythms played by respected musicians (each of which is unique to a given deity or ancestor), participants embody a deity or ancestor, energy or state of mind by performing distinct ritual movements or dances which further enhance their elevated consciousness.

When this trance-like state is witnessed and understood, adherents are privy to a way of contemplating the pure or symbolic embodiment of a particular mindset or frame of reference. This builds skills at separating the feelings elicited by this mindset from their situational manifestations in daily life. Such separation and subsequent contemplation of the nature and sources of pure energy or feelings serves to help participants manage and accept them when they arise in mundane contexts. This facilitates better control and transformation of these energies into positive, culturally appropriate behavior, thought, and speech. Also, this practice can also give rise to those in these trances uttering words which, when interpreted by a culturally educated initiate or diviner, can provide insight into appropriate directions which the community (or individual) might take in accomplishing its goal.

Selected images

Organisations

All-African People's Revolutionary Party  · African Society for Cultural Relations with Independent Africa  · African Unification Front  · African Union  · African Queens and Women Cultural Leaders Network  · Conseil de l'Entente  · Convention People's Party  · East African Community  · Economic Freedom Fighters  · Global Afrikan Congress  · International African Service Bureau  · International League for Darker People  · Organisation of African Unity  · Pan African Association  · Pan-African Congress  · Pan Africanist Congress of Azania  · Rassemblement Démocratique Africain  · Pan Africa Chemistry Network  · Pan African Federation of Accountants  · Pan-African Freedom Movement for East and Central Africa  · Sahara and Sahel Observatory  · UNIA-ACL  · ZANU–PF

See also



&

Festivals

Grand Durbar in Kaduna State in the occasion of Black and African Festival of Arts and Culture, 15 January - 12 February 1977.

Photo by Helinä Rautavaara (1977)

Publications

  • Awakening the Natural Genius of Black Children (1992) by Dr. Amos N. Wilson
  • Blueprint for Black Power: A Moral, Political and Economic Imperative for the Twenty-First Century (1998) by Dr. Amos N. Wilson
  • Afrikan-Centered Consciousness Versus the New World Order: Garveyism in the Age of Globalism (1999) by Dr. Amos N. Wilson
  • The Cress Theory of Color-Confrontation and Racism (White Supremacy) (1970) by Dr. Frances Cress Welsing
  • The Isis Papers: The Keys to the Colors (1991) by Dr. Frances Cress Welsing
  • The root cause of the bread and butter demonstration (1959) by Alieu Ebrima Cham Joof

Films and TV

Audios and videos

Did you know

...that in London's Africa Centre, Desmond Tutu and Thabo Mbeki used to meet at the bar?

Selected quotes

In addressing imperialism at a Salisbury (Southern Rhodesia) meeting held on 9 April 1962, the former President of Zimbabwe Robert Mugabe delivered the following speech:



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