The Beginnings of the Liberation Struggle in Africa

Notes:

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The Beginnings of the Liberation Struggle in Africa:

MI: During World War I, European made promises toward African in return for their resources and manpower, but the promise was broke leading to strikes and rebellions.

·  By the 19th century, Western-educated Africans and traditional rulers =loyal toward British and French overlords -> French and British are able to use manpower, raw materials, laborers, soldiers from Africa during World War I.

·  World War I -> African merchants and framers suffer from shipping shortages/ decline of demand for crops such as cocoa-> African=hungry~ crops given to armies of allies.

·  European made promises to Africans to join the military-> but only kept a few such as better jobs and public honors-> strikes/riots broke out-> Great Depression.

·  Western-educated politicians did not pay much attention of urban workers/ peasants -> Marcus Garvey and W.E.B Du Bois (African American political figure) emerge African nationalist leaders -> pan-African organization (made up of African loyalties~ leadership = African Americans, West Indians)

·  French-speaking West Africans focus on their organizational and ideological efforts in Paris-> negritude literary movement combat racial stereotyping bondage to Europeans.

·  Leopold Senghor (Senegalese poet), Leon Damas (from French Guiana), and West Indian Aime Cesaire celebrated beauty of black skin and African physique -> arguing African people in pre-colonial era~ women were freer, old people better care, attitudes toward sex were healthier than civilized West.

·  Western-educated Africans in British territories were given greater opportunities-> nurture organization linking nationalist of different British colonies~ National Congress of British West Africa-> able to concern with issues within individual colonies.

·  British grant representation in colonial advisory councils to Western-educated Africans~ political organization= bad structured to be true political parties-> leaders attack British polices and reached out for African villagers and young that played little role in nationalist.

P. 723-727

The Liberation of Nonsettler Africa

MI: Educated-Africans begin to take a nationalist position and established the Convention People Party of organizing mass movements.

·  Forced labor, confiscations of crops and minerals, inflations, African earnings cut down, African recruits~ serviceman fought bravely -> used European latest weapons to destroy Europeans during World War II.

·  Wartime of British and French-> restricted industrial development throughout Africa-> factories made vegetable oils, foods, and minerals in west and central of Africa-> growing migration of African peasants to towns shaping African urban growth.

·  Kwame Nkrumah was educated in African missionary schools and Untied States-> created contacts with nationalist leaders in British and French West Africa and civil rights leaders in America in the late 1940s-> restrictions on government control marketing boards and favoritism for British merchants -> nonviolent protest in cities, but police fire in 1948= riot.

·  Western-educated African leaders=slow organizing groups into a sustained mass movement

-> Nkrumah resigned position as dominated political party in Gold Coast creating Convention People Party (CPP)~ signaling arrival of new style of politics by organizing mass rallies, boycotts, strikes.

·  Educated Africans were give representation in the legislative bodies and took over administration of colony -> British recognize Nkrumah as prime minister of the independent Ghana in 1957.

·  French made sure that African leaders would dominate the nationalist movements and post independence in French West Africa-> 1956-1960, French colonies moved toward nationhood-> 1960, France’s west African colonies=free.

·  Well-educated Congolese led resistance to Belgian rule -> 1960 independence, only 16 African collage graduates in Congolese population exceeded 13 million.

Repression and Guerrila War: The Struggle for the Settler Colonies

MI: Settlers in the 1950s-1960s, revolt with violence to fight for their independence with the KAU, FLN, and OAS group they form.

·  South Africa-> settled by Europeans -> gave new openings for nationalist agitation -> South Africa, Algeria, Kenya, Southern Rhodesia blocked rise of nationalist movements.

·  Settlers emigrated =permanent homes-> fought attempts to turn political control over to African and grant civil rights-> refused reforms by colonial administrators-> African leaders turned to violent, revolutionary struggle for independence.

·  1950s, Kenya-> Kenya African Union (KAU) (underground organization made up of radical leaders) = impatient with Jomo Kenyatta and nationalist party of nonviolent approached-> formed Land Freedom Army -> campaign terror and guerrilla warfare against British settlers-> British imprison Kenyatta and KAU.

·  1963 Kenya won independence-> most stable and prosperous of new African states.

·  Algeria-> National Liberation Front (FLN) -> full-scale against French rule and settler dominance.

·  1960, Algeria~ Secret Army Organization (OAS) =against Arabs, Berbers, French that favor independence for colony.

·  French military-> toppled government in Paris in 1958-> end of Fourth Republic.

·  1960a-> OAS was close to killing de Gaulle and overthrow the Fifth Republic.

·  1962, independence was won by Algerian

·  Migrants formed the Algerian population present in France.

The Persistence of White Supremacy in South Africa:

MI: By the 1900s, Afrikaners created the Afrikaner National Party winning their complete independence from Britain and apartheid was established giving no rights to them.

·  Southern Africa violent revolutions-> end of white settler dominance in Portuguese colonies of Angola and Mozambique (1975), Southern Rhodesia (1980).

·  Afrikaners had no European homeland to go back too and consider themselves as distinct from Dutch.

·  Afrikaner-> racism

·  1930s-1940s-> black Africans -> Afrikaner National Party -> winning complete independence from Britain without using violence.

·  1948 through the passage of thousands laws, created the apartheid by Afrikaners-> legislation reserved best jobs for whites and define contact between radical groups-> rights to vote was denied for black, color, and Indians ~many restricted.

P. 804-806

South Africa: The Apartheid State and Its Decline:

MI: In the 1990s, Afrikaners were under the laws of apartheid system and government begin to prohibit forms of black protest and brutally including non-violent, but by 1994 Nelson Mandela became president and the African National Congress party came to power.

·  Some nations received its independence while others remain under the European or the American rule to present day.

·  Dutch-descended Afrikaners-> control of the country with leadership of Nationalist party-> blacks were not allowed to vote-> Nationalist won complete independence from Great Britain in 1960-> Afrikaners were rule by thousands of laws making up the apartheid.

·  Apartheid-> unequal facilities were created for different radical group for recreation, education, housing, work, medical care & dating and sexual intercourse across racial lines =strictly prohibited-> non white South Africans were given jail if it broken.

·  Numerous homelands within South Africa were created for the separation -> poorest lands toward black African.

·  1980s~ government prohibit all forms of black protest and brutally even non-violent resitance-> African National Congress=illegal-> Walter Sisulu and Nelson Mandela, African leaders, were shipped off to prisons-> Steve Biko was an organizer of Black Consciousness movement was killed.

·  F.W. de Klerk pushed for reforms that begin to go against the apartheid system

·  1994 election brought power to African National Congress party-> led by Nelson Mandela-> becoming the first black president in South Africa-> one of the most skillful/respected political leaders.