In October 1945, in the industrial heart of Manchester, a gathering took place that would help reshape the course of the twentieth century. Over the course of six days, from 15 to 21 October, the Fifth Pan-African Congress brought together a powerful coalition of Black activists, intellectuals, trade unionists, students and future heads of state. They met in a post-war Britain weakened by conflict but still clinging to empire. What they demanded was clear: an immediate end to colonial rule, full racial equality, and the right of African and Caribbean peoples to determine their own futures.
Eighty years later, the Congress remains a watershed in the history of Pan-Africanism and global Black resistance — not just for what it achieved in the moment, but for the world it helped to bring into being.
The Road to Manchester: Pan-Africanism Before 1945
Pan-Africanism as a formal movement began at the dawn of the twentieth century. The First Pan-African Conference, organised by Trinidadian lawyer Henry Sylvester Williams, was held in London in 1900 and attended by delegates from Africa, the Caribbean and the United States. Later congresses — including those in Paris (1919), London and Brussels (1921), Lisbon (1923), and New York (1927) — were largely the work of W. E. B. Du Bois, the African American intellectual and civil rights pioneer.
These early gatherings were important in articulating Black self-determination and solidarity but were often elite in composition and moderate in tone. Most delegates were lawyers, scholars, clergy and professionals. They worked largely within the moral framework of empire, advocating for reform, civil rights and racial equality rather than complete decolonisation.
By 1945, the tone and tempo of Pan-Africanism had shifted. The war had globalised racial politics. Black soldiers had fought for Allied democracy only to return to segregation, discrimination and colonial subjugation. A younger, more radical generation now led the movement — one rooted not in respectability politics but in mass mobilisation and anti-colonial revolution.
Why Manchester?
Manchester, though not an obvious choice to some, was deeply symbolic. It was the city where cotton from slave plantations in the Americas had fuelled industrial growth. Yet it was also a city of resistance — home to strong trade unions, anti-slavery societies, and working-class internationalism.
Manchester’s Black communities — made up of students, seafarers, ex-servicemen and workers — were politically active. Organisations like the West African Students’ Union, the Negro Welfare Centre, and the Pan-African Federation had roots in the city. Crucially, Ras Makonnen, a Guyanese-born businessman and activist, ran a bookshop and café that acted as an organising hub. Alongside George Padmore, a Trinidadian Marxist and Pan-Africanist, he helped bring the Congress to Manchester and secured venues, accommodation and resources.
Who Was There?
Roughly 87 delegates from over 50 organisations attended the Congress, representing Africa, the Caribbean, the United States, and the Black British diaspora. Among them were individuals who would go on to become independence leaders in their own countries:
- Kwame Nkrumah (Ghana) – A dynamic organiser who would become the first Prime Minister of Ghana in 1957.
- Jomo Kenyatta (Kenya) – Later President of Kenya, although notably silent during the Congress due to British surveillance.
- Dr Hastings Banda (Malawi) and Obafemi Awolowo (Nigeria) – Both key players in their countries’ independence movements.
- Amy Ashwood Garvey – Feminist, pan-Africanist, and co-founder of the Universal Negro Improvement Association with Marcus Garvey.
- E. B. Du Bois, then aged 77, attended as honorary president — a passing of the torch from an earlier generation to a new, more confrontational cohort. Yet it was George Padmore who truly directed the Congress’s strategic tone, shaping its radical agenda and preparing the political resolutions that would travel with its delegates back to Africa and the Caribbean.
Makonnen later wrote: “We did not meet to make speeches for history. We met to bring down empires.”
The Resolutions: Radical, Practical, Unapologetic
The Congress did not aim for diplomatic politeness. It called for:
- The immediate and complete liquidation of colonialism
- National independence and self-governance
- Freedom of the press, the right to education, trade unions and assembly
- An end to racial discrimination, both within the colonies and in metropolitan centres like Britain
- Return of land and resources to colonised peoples
Unlike earlier Pan-African meetings, this one endorsed mass action — strikes, civil disobedience, and political mobilisation. The Congress described colonial governments as “alien dictatorships” and condemned imperialism as “exploitation masquerading as civilisation.”
Importantly, the Congress also addressed what it called “the colour problem in Britain” — examining systemic racism faced by Black communities in housing, employment, policing and education. This recognition of Britain as both a coloniser and a site of racial injustice was an important development in Black British political thought.
A Blueprint for Decolonisation
The influence of the Fifth Pan-African Congress can be seen in the decade that followed. Ghana, under Nkrumah, gained independence in 1957. Nigeria followed in 1960. Kenya, Tanganyika (later Tanzania), Uganda and others would gain independence by the mid-1960s. The Caribbean would soon follow.
Though national independence had many causes — including economic pressure on Britain and armed uprisings — the political solidarity, strategy and urgency forged at Manchester helped set the tone. Delegates left the Congress not just inspired but organised.
They returned home with resolutions in hand, began forming national liberation movements, and established relationships between independence parties across borders. The Congress had not only imagined freedom — it had mapped the route.
Marginalised Memories
Despite its monumental impact, the Fifth Pan-African Congress was largely ignored by the British press at the time. The BBC did not cover it. Most national newspapers made no mention of it. The racism that the Congress condemned was reflected in its lack of visibility.
For decades, its legacy was preserved largely in community memory and the writings of participants. Only recently has Manchester begun to publicly honour its role. The People’s History Museum, the Working Class Movement Library, and local activists have worked to recover the story — producing exhibitions, educational materials and commemorative plaques.
But the Congress’s women remain underrepresented in mainstream accounts. Amy Ashwood Garvey chaired its opening session. Others, such as Marion Glean, Alma La Badie, and Akua Rugg, worked behind the scenes to organise events, print materials, and handle communications. These women’s names deserve equal recognition in any full telling of 1945.
What Pan-Africanism Meant — and Means
The vision of Pan-Africanism in Manchester was bold and broad. It was not merely anti-colonial — it was also economic, cultural and psychological.
It rejected the idea that Africa was backwards or dependent. It affirmed that Black people, wherever they lived, shared a history of struggle and a right to liberation. It insisted that African peoples had a right to their land, labour, languages, and leadership — not as favours from the empire, but as birthrights.
Today, Pan-Africanism continues to evolve. It inspires campaigns for reparations, the return of looted artefacts, and the decolonisation of education. It is present in Afrocentric education, the resurgence of Swahili and Yoruba in diaspora communities, and in Black Lives Matter protests that link US police violence to European racism and African neocolonialism.
Eighty Years Later: The Mandate Remains
The call issued from Manchester in 1945 was not only political — it was moral. It declared that Black freedom was non-negotiable. That dignity was not dependent on geography. That solidarity was not sentiment but strategy.
Eighty years on, these demands are as vital as ever. Neocolonial economic models, racialised policing, climate injustice and cultural erasure still disproportionately affect the African continent and its diasporas. The African Union has reaffirmed the relevance of Pan-Africanism as a foundational principle. So too have Black-led organisations in Britain and across the globe, who continue to challenge racial injustice in all its forms.
As we honour the Fifth Pan-African Congress today, we are not merely remembering an event. We are reactivating its message — a message crafted in the heat of struggle, written by the hands of those who knew freedom must be seized, not granted.
The delegates in Manchester stood not as supplicants, but as visionaries. And in their collective voice they said:
“We are determined to be free — today.”
The question now is not whether we remember them.
The question is: Are we prepared to finish the work they began?
References and Further Reading
- Adi, Hakim & Sherwood, Marika. The 1945 Manchester Pan-African Congress: A Landmark in the Fight for Freedom. London: New Beacon Books. New Beacon Books
- Williams, Theo (2020). “The Fifth Pan-African Congress, 1945: A Landmark Moment in British Radical History.” History Workshop, 26 October 2020. Available at: https://www.historyworkshop.org.uk
- “Selections from Declarations and Resolutions of the Fifth Pan-African Congress.” Black Camera, 13(1). Available via JSTOR: https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2979/blackcamera.13.1.0343
- Sherwood, Marika. “Why Was the 1945 Pan-African Congress Held in Manchester?” Race Archive Blog. Available at: https://www.racearchive.org.uk
- “Africa Speaks in Manchester: Pan-Africanism, Manchester and a Collection Gem.” People’s History Museum Blog (1 October 2025). https://phm.org.uk
- Bamford, Thom (2025). “The Fifth Pan-African Congress in Manchester and Its Lasting Impact.” I Love Manchester, 28 July 2025. https://ilovemanchester.com
- “The Fifth Pan-African Congress.” Pan-African Congress Official Website. https://panafricancongress.org
- University of Manchester (2020). “The 75th Anniversary of the Fifth Pan-African Congress.” https://documents.manchester.ac.uk/display.aspx?DocID=50072
- Kawa Education Hub. “The Fifth Pan-African Congress or the 1945 Manchester Conference.” https://kawa.ac.ug
- Wikipedia contributors. “Pan-African Congress.” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopaedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pan-African_Congress