English
A revelatory new history of post-colonial African independence movements shows how they were systematically undermined by one nation: the US. This is the untold story of how, over a few vital years, African Independence was strangled at birth. In 1958 in Accra, Ghana, the Hands Off Africa conference brought together the leading figures of African independence in a public show of political strength and purpose. It was inspired by the example of Ghana itself which, under the charismatic leadership of Kwame Nkrumah, had just thrown off the British colonial yoke - the first African nation to do so. It was moment heady with promise for independence movements across Africa, and for all those who believed colonialism was a moral aberration. Among the supporters of African independence were some of the leading figures of the American Civil Rights movement. Malcolm X was in Accra and Martin Luther King used Nkrumah's speech as the basis for his own "Free At Last" speech, so clear were the parallels between their own struggle for political equality in the US with that of the African nations. W. E. B. Du Bois moved to Ghana, inspired by the future of independent Africa. Yet among the many off
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post-colonial · African independence · United States · colonialism · Kwame Nkrumah · Pan-Africanism · Civil Rights · Malcolm X · Martin Luther King · W E B Du Bois