This year marks 60 years since the historic 1958 All-African People’s Conference held in Accra, Ghana. It was the first major Pan-African gathering organized on African soil. Osagyefo Kwame Nkrumah, Ghana’s first president hosted the conference. The organizing of the conference was led by long-time Pan Africanist and friend of Nkrumah, George Padmore in his capacity as Advisor to the Prime Minister on African Affairs.
The overarching theme of the 1958 conference was “Hands Off Africa.” The conference organizers issued a call to nationalist organizations, women’s groups, trade union groups, and youth groups all over Africa to come to Ghana in December to discuss the final overthrow of colonialism and imperialism. Today we are calling on the global African family to continue the fight for a free, liberated and self-determined Africa in the spirit of the 1958 All-African People’s Conference.
Other commemorations are being planned in Uganda, Tanzania, Russia, Kenya, Cameroon, Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast, Democratic Republic of the Congo, South Africa, England and France.
Speakers:
- Angela Simms, University of Penn, PhD Candidate
- Maurice Carney, Director of Friends of the Congo
- Ajamu Baraka, National Organizer for Black Alliance for Peace
- Adryan Wallace, Africana Studies Professor and Organizer for Pan-African Community Action (PACA)
Our goals are to build a new unity, assess the state of neo-colonialism, draw lessons from that conference for today’s struggle for Pan-Africanism, and assemble a nucleus of institutions and grassroots organizations that can work in a coordinated and effective way.
This DC gathering is free and open to the public but a suggested $5.00 donation will be requested at the door to defray costs. No one will be turned away for lack of funds.
Local co-sponsors: Revival of Pan-Africanism Forum, Friends of the Congo, Black Alliance for Peace, Institute for Policy Studies, Pan-African Community Action, Africa World Now Project, and more TBA.
Learn more here: http://www.ips-dc.org/events/african-peoples-conference-60th-anniversary