Pan-Africanism the African independence movements Some elements sought a unified postcolonial continentwide African nation The Pan-African movement developed two strains Continental Pan-Africanism dealt with the continent itself, emphasizing political union or international cooperation Diaspora Pan-Africanism attempted to bring together all black Africans and persons of African descent The underlying assumption of Pan-Africanism is that all African people have common ties and objectives that can best be realized by united effort All Africans around the world have a common future based on a common past of forced dispersal through the slave trade, oppression through colonialism and racism, economic exploitation, and denial of political rights All Africans also share a common history, culture, and social background, all of which are denied by white racism “All Africans” has been variously defined as including all black Africans, all people descended from black Africans, all people in Africa regardless of color, and all African states All people working together for a common African goal based on a common African experience are considered part of the Pan-African movement Originally, Pan-Africanism sought unity of all African black cultures and countries It expanded to encompass all black-descended people in the world, those who had been forced to the Caribbean, the United States, Latin America, the Middle East, and South Asia through the transatlantic and Islamic/East African slave trades as well as later immigration Some PanAfricanists include the Sudroid and Australoid blacks of India Also included are the Andamanese Island Negritos and the black aborigines of Melanesia, New Guinea, and Australia Colonial conquest was commonly followed by control of the native populations as a source of cheap and reliable labor in mines and on African plantations Europeans came to dominate a market-based production of raw materials Europeans imposed a caste system and a foreign type of governance over the tribal peoples, and the British were notable for using the local officials as pawns Internal developments were made to facilitate the extraction of African wealth for European benefit Africans fought the colonialists from early on Discontent with the system and dislike of the colonialists led to efforts to unify Africans for their own good African rulers protested in writing to their European counterparts, and slaves rose against oppression periodically in the Americas and the Caribbean At the Congress of Berlin in 1884 to reduce European rivalries and friction in Africa, the European powers 289 prepared to divide Africa among themselves The race for Africa led George Charles of the African Emigration Association (AEA) to declare in 1886 that the AEA intended to establish the United States of Africa A PanAfricanist conference in Chicago in 1893 denounced the European division of Africa, particularly the actions of the French against Liberia and Abyssinia In 1900 Henry Sylvester-Williams organized a PanAfrican conference that brought Africans from the Caribbean and United States to London to discuss common concerns with white Britian Initially, the meeting sought to protest unequal treatment of blacks in colonial Britain and in Britain itself Speakers also spoke of the need to preserve the dignity of African peoples and to educate them and provide social services The conference also heard W E B DuBois predict that “the problem of the twentieth century is the color line.” Williams died in 1911, and DuBois took over management of the congresses He organized the next several meetings DuBois, one of the founders of the Niagara movement and the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People), and other black leaders were concerned after World War I about the treatment of African-American and African soldiers as well as the status of the former German African colonies The first Pan-African Congress took place in 1919 in Paris, where the European powers were holding the Paris Peace Conference The 1919 Pan-African Congress had an agenda similar to that of the 1900 meeting Africans needed education and the right to participate in their own affairs The former German colonies were of particular interest, and a proposal was made that the League of Nations hold them in trust until they were ready for self-determination The league did take the territories under nominal oversight but gave them to the other European states without requiring any move toward self-determination The congresses became larger as attendance from the Unites States, Africa, the Caribbean, and Europe increased Reasons for the growth included sponsorship of delegates by international labor movements, which were growing during the 1920s Also, the black nationalism of Marcus Garvey was on the ascent Garveyites in the United States sought African unity as well as improvement of the lot of working-class blacks They contrasted with the elite blacks who tended to support DuBois The Jamaican Garvey formed the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) in 1914 as a vehicle for instilling black pride and improving the political and economic lot of blacks everywhere