290 Pan-Africanism Garveyism also called for repatriation to Africa, the Back to Africa movement Garvey’s movement rose rapidly, expanding beyond the United States His UNIA had chapters in Europe, Australia, and South Africa, and his Negro World sold widely The Black Star Line was Garvey’s vehicle for entry into international trade as well as for transporting blacks to Liberia In 1925 Garvey was arrested on mail fraud charges in connection with the operation of the steamship line, and the movement faded Garvey’s ideas lingered on, stimulating African students in London to create the West African Student Union (WASU) in 1929 WASU brought together the young, aggressive African and Caribbean blacks who wanted political independence for the African colonies Drawing attention to the problems of black people in the late 1920s and 1930s was the Harlem Renaissance, the most prominent of the black cultural movements of the time The Harlem Renaissance, centered in New York’s predominantly black neighborhood, brought public awareness of the work of such black writers as Richard Wright, Langston Hughes, and Claude McKay as well as DuBois It also featured black artists who called for black pride and an end to racial injustice France’s African and Caribbean black artists founded the négritude movement, which stated that all Africans regardless of geographic location had a common set of traits Négritude rebuffed those who alleged African inferiority It included authors such as Aimé Césaire, Alioune Diop, Leon-Gontran Damas, and Leopold Sédar Senghor, who later would serve as Senegal’s first president The Great Depression of the 1930s and the world war of the 1940s set back the Pan-African movement British and U.S blacks remained involved, though, protesting the 1935 invasion of Ethiopia by Italy, for instance African-American organizations established the Council on African Affairs in 1937; this was the first black-led U.S lobbying organization It sought to increase Americans’ awareness of the problems of blacks subjected to colonialism and sought independence for the African colonies While in the United States as a student in the early 1940s, Kwame Nkrumah of the British colony the Gold Coast (now Ghana) founded the African Student Organization He moved to London in 1944 and joined the Pan-Africanist movement led by the Jamaican George Padmore and the Trinidadian C L R James Other members were Jomo Kenyatta of Kenya and Hastings Kamuzu Banda of Malawi, both of whom, like Nkrumah, would eventually lead their countries This group sponsored the fifth Pan-African Congress in 1945 That meeting brought together trade unionists and nationalists from England, the United States, Africa, and the Caribbean in Manchester, England, and it spurred African leadership in the Pan-African and African independence movements Independence came to 17 African countries in 1960; 80 percent of the continent was independent by the end of 1963 Many of the new leaders resisted Nkrumah’s United States of Africa, preferring to preserve newly won autonomy The Organization of African Unity (OAU, now the African Union), founded at Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, by 32 north and sub-Saharan African nations in 1963, was a loose federation dedicated to cooperation across the continent Political union failed to materialize because Africa’s new states were preoccupied with political differences and widespread poverty The last European colonies became independent between 1974 and 1980 Pan-African groups throughout the world continued to pressure governments and increase public awareness through the 1980s and early 1990s of the injustice of white minority rule in Namibia and South Africa Continental Pan-Africanism remains as a means of addressing Africa’s severe problems It takes the form of regional cooperative groups including the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and the Southern African Development Community (SADC, originally the Southern African Develop Coordination Council, SADCC) These trade organizations have promoted regional economic integration They provide a counterforce to the international trade blocs led by North America, Asia, and Europe African-descended people throughout the world still face political, social, and economic challenges Because their problems are similar, international cooperation and common problem-solving strategies remain essential These approaches are the fruit of Pan-Africanism Critics note that Pan-Africanism fails to acknowledge that blacks around the world are not one unit They have different cultures, ethnicities, societies, and political structures See also Casely Hayford, Joseph Ephraim; National Congress of British West Africa Further reading: Benn, Denis The Caribbean: An Intellectual History, 1774–2003 Kingston, Jamaica: Ian Randle Publishers, 2004; Holledge, Julie, Marika Sherwood, and Hakim Adi Pan-African History London: Routledge, 2003; Kanneh, Kadiatu African Identities London: Routledge,