by AJAMU NANGWAYA
Amy Ashwood Garvey (1897-1969), Jamaican-born political activist and Marcus Garvey’s first wife
There are numerous women in the African Diaspora who have worked for the liberation of Africans under the banner of Pan-Africanism. They must be rescued from political obscurity. Pan-Africanism as a revolutionary ideology must firmly embrace feminism.
We are commemorating the 58th anniversary of African Liberation Day on May 25. When most of us think of Pan-Africanism and its major icons, women will not instinctively come to mind. Pan-Africanist history and activism might appear as the exclusive domain of African men. However, I am encouraging readers to embrace the position of the radical hip hop group Public Enemy and “Don’t Believe the Hype” about women not being major contributors to Pan-Africanism. In the Hakim Adi and Sharika Sherwood authored book Pan-African History: Political Figures from Africa and the Diaspora since 1787, forty Pan-Africanists are surveyed and only three of them are women.
Pan-Africanism is an ideology and a movement that calls for global solidarity and cooperation among Africans in order to liberate themselves from racist oppression and (neo)colonial and imperialist domination. Africa holds a central place in Pan-Africanist thoughts and organizing. It is the ancestral land of Africans. The harnessing of the continent’s resources for the benefit of the people will serve as the basis for liberation. A Pan-Africanism of liberation should be based on the labouring classes as its principal constituency and, as such, must be an anti-capitalist, feminist, anti-imperialist and anti-racist movement. This article will focus on Pan-Africanist women from the African Diaspora.
Diaspora Pan-Africanist women have contributed to movement Pan-Africanism from its inception at the Henry Sylvester Williams-initiated Pan African Conference in 1900 in the city of London. According to the Haitian Pan-Africanist Benito Sylvain’s conference report, its principal goal was to “examine the situation facing the African race in every corner of the globe, to solemnly protest the unjust contempt and odious treatment which are still heaped upon the race everywhere.” This conference wanted to form an organization that would coordinate the worldwide struggle against the oppression of Africans and advance their interests. Sylvain’s historic report is available in Tony Martin’s book The Pan-African Connection: From Slavery to Garvey and Beyond.
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