At the height of his fame in the 1950s and 1960s, Martin Luther King Jr. waged a two-front fight, fighting segregation and racial injustice and inequality in America and calling attention to the challenges in Africa caused by colonialism.
His campaign in Africa was related to the awareness of his ancestral ties to the continent and knowledge of the place, having visited countries such as Ghana and interacting with leaders there and elsewhere.
Using his oratorical gift to great effect, the Georgia-born preacher and civil rights activist spoke about conditions in Africa and the struggle for the emancipation of the peoples of the continent, just as African-Americans led by him and others stood up for equal rights. in the U.S. .
In one of his speeches delivered in early April 1957, King compared the struggle of the African people to the biblical tribulations in Egypt.
“I would like to use as a basis for thinking together a story that has long since been etched in the mind sheets of generations to come,” he said. “It is the story of the exodus, the story of the escape of the Hebrew people from slavery in Egypt, through the desert and, finally, to the Promised Land. It is a beautiful story.
“I had the privilege the other night to see the story in film terms in New York City, entitled The ten Commandments, and I got to see it in all its beauty. The struggle of Moses, the struggle of his devoted followers as they sought to get out of Egypt. And finally they advanced towards the desert and towards the Promised Land. This is something from the history of all the peoples who fight for freedom. It is the first story of man’s explicit search for freedom. And it demonstrates the stages that seem to inevitably follow the search for freedom.
added that before Until March 1957, there was a country known as the Gold Coast (now Ghana) that was a colony of the British Empire.
“This country was situated on that vast continent known as Africa,…that continent with some 200 million people, and it stretches out and covers a large amount of territory. There are many household names associated with Africa that you will probably remember, and there are some countries in Africa that many people never even realize. For example, Egypt… and Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco and Libya.”
He then moved the story to South Africa, talking about the often-in-the-news capital city of Johannesburg, Rhodesia (present-day Zimbabwe), the Belgian Congo, then further east to Africa with places like Kenya and Tanganyika (now Tanzania). and others like Uganda and further down West Africa and Nigeria, Liberia, Sierra Leone.
King then drove home his point: “For years and centuries, Africa has been one of the most exploited continents in the history of the world. It has been the Dark Continent. It has been the continent that has suffered all the pain and grief that other nations could cause. It is that continent that has experienced slavery, that has experienced all the lowest standards we can imagine, created by the exploitation inflicted on it by other nations.”
He continued: “And there was a big power struggle in Africa. With the growth of the slave trade, not only the Portuguese, but also the Swedes, the Danes, the Dutch and the British arrived in Africa, the Gold Coast in particular. And all these nations competed with each other to gain power on the Gold Coast so that they could exploit these people for commercial reasons and sell them into slavery. Finally, in 1850, Great Britain won and seized the entire territorial expansion of the Gold Coast.
As in many parts of Africa, The Ghanaian struggle for independence from Great Britain was long and tortuous. Independence was finally secured in 1957 with King and many other civil rights activists and delegates from nations around the world, traveling to Ghana to witness Kwame Nkrumah take over leadership of the British colonial lords.
Ghanaian Prime Minister Kwame Nkrumah with Martin Luther King in Ghana in 1957.
It was a victory that would reverberate across the entire African landscape.
King recalled her emotion that day: “Before I knew it, I started crying. She was crying with joy. And he knew about all the struggles, and all the pain, and all the agony that these people had gone through at this time.”
In addition to Ghana, King also spoke about conditions in apartheid South Africa, where discriminatory policies implemented by a white minority government put whites ahead of the black majority. He denounced those who made it impossible for both sides to coexist as one people.
Julius A. Amin, Professor in history at the University of Dayton, in an article published by The Conversation, notes that “King’s knowledge of Africa evolved slowly and was at first peppered with the usual beliefs of African backwardness.”
But his trip to Ghana proved to be a revelation, Amin said: “King… spoke endlessly about the resilience, determination and courage of the African people. The anti-colonial struggle in Ghana mirrored what was happening across Africa.”
Amin continued, “King later pointed out that Ghana’s independence will have implications and repercussions all over the world, not only for Asia and Africa, but also for the Americas. This gave African Americans new insights into the anti-colonial struggle. Increasingly, King saw parallels between the anti-colonial movement in Africa and the fight for civil rights in the US.
following on the heels of Ghana’s success as an independent country were other African countries. Nigeria gained independence from Britain in 1960, Algeria from France in 1962, Kenya from Britain in 1963, Mozambique from Portugal in 1975.
While racial segregation remained entrenched in the United States, the tide of independence was turning rapidly in Africa, Amin noted. “In 1960, 17 African nations gained their independence. They took their anti-racism message to the United Nations, where they chastised the United States for failing to stop racism against black people.”
Antonio Akaeze is a Nigerian-born freelance journalist living in Houston. He covers Africa for BNG.
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