Black Transnational Movement for Representation and Land

Ramla Bandele, Article Author

The 1919 Pan-African Congress was held in Paris to coincide with the Paris Peace Conference ending World War One. It was held to develop a plan for lasting peace between the European states and the United States of America after the devastation of World War I. Africans and African-descended activists tried to influence the political agenda of the Paris Peace Conference as it related to the political and economic location of all African and Caribbean colonies, as well as African descended peoples of the Americas. The Allied Powers did not encourage such organization because the rebuilding of the international economy depended upon the continued control and exploitation of all of their colonies, including Africa and its people. As a result, very few marginalized groups from Asia and Africa were able to negotiate or meet with the Allied Powers during the Conference. Given these obstacles, it is impressive that the Pan-African Congress came to fruition, and eventually presented resolutions to the new League of Nations. The U.S. government refused to issue passports to African-Americans. It took the combined efforts of Blaise Diagne and W.E.B. Du Bois to navigate around the obstacles and organize the Pan-African Congress in Paris in February 1919. Diagne’s role was crucial to the convening of the Congress. A Senegalese, Diagne was the highest-ranking African in French politics, having assisted France in recruiting African soldiers. As a Senegalese deputy to the French Parliament, French Prime Minister Clemenceau approved the Congress; nonetheless he disapproved widespread publicity for it. Du Bois was instrumental in assembling delegates from various African, American and European organizations. There were at least 57 delegates representing 15 countries and colonies, including Haiti, Liberia, the British West Indies, West African colonies and the United States. At least 19 delegates were from Africa. Although it is often referred to as the 1st Pan-African Congress, it actually was patterned after the Pan-African Conference, convened in 1900 by Henry Sylvester Williams. Du Bois had been a delegate at the 1900 conference. The Congress petitioned Allied nations to take specific actions to address oppressive political and economic conditions prevailing throughout predominately black colonies and throughout the Americas.

The Congress requested numerous changes in colonial policy, including the following critical areas:

 1) Land ownership and equitable economic development which would allow Africans to profit from the sale of their natural resources. They also wanted a portion of European profits to be committed to the economic development of the colonies. 

2) Educational opportunity and accessible health care were highlighted. To insure that Africans would acquire effective knowledge to compete in the international economy, the delegates lobbied for educational programming, not only in industrial fields, but also in language and Western governance. Health care was considered a vital component of effective development as well.

 3) African participation in local government and the decolonization of the mandated colonies were primary concerns. The delegates were concerned about the plight of the African colonies that the defeated Germany had to relinquish. The PAC delegates called for the League of Nations to administer these so-called “mandated” colonies, insuring that the European powers could not absorb them and also to make it possible for diaspora Africans to migrate and settle within these mandated areas. The Congress participants envisioned the establishment of a Bureau within the League to develop and implement these resolutions. Though Du Bois did get the opportunity to discuss these resolutions with U.S. officials and over a thousand copies of the resolutions were distributed, no delegates were authorized to address the Peace Conference and ultimately their resolutions were not instituted.

Undeterred, the Pan-African Congress delegates established an Executive Committee toward the development of a worldwide body to lobby for these goals, and they agreed to hold congresses biennially. The next Congress was to meet in 1921.