The Fifth Pan-African Congress, held in Manchester in October 1945, was one of the most consequential gatherings of African and diaspora intellectuals and political figures in the twentieth century. Jomo Kenyatta attended as a delegate and played an important role in the proceedings. The congress brought together figures who would shape the post-war anti-colonial movement: Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana, Hastings Kamuzu Banda of Malawi, Peter Abrahams, George Padmore, and others. For many participants, the 1945 congress marked a decisive shift in Pan-African politics from cultural nationalism and intellectual resistance to organized political mobilization for African independence.
Manchester in 1945 was a symbolic choice: the heart of British industrial capitalism and imperial power, yet also a center of socialist and anti-imperialist activity. The congress was held in the context of the waning of Japanese imperial power in Asia and the beginning of the end of European colonial hegemony globally. Participants debated the shape of the postcolonial world and the proper strategy for African liberation. Kenyatta, at fifty-four years old, was among the senior figures at the congress, respected for his intellectual work on African culture and his long residence in the metropolitan center.
The congress adopted resolutions demanding immediate African independence and rejecting accommodation with empire. The proceedings were marked by intense debates about the proper pace and path of decolonization, the role of socialism in African liberation, and the relationship between Pan-African unity and particular national independence movements. Kenyatta participated actively, though the historical record is somewhat thin on the specifics of his interventions. He was neither the firebrand that Nkrumah would become nor the cautious gradualist that some other figures advocated.
The Manchester congress proved to be a significant networking and ideological moment for Kenyatta. His interactions with Nkrumah and other Pan-African figures established relationships that would persist into the independence era. It also confirmed Kenyatta's status as a leading African intellectual and political thinker, not merely a Kikuyu representative but a figure of continental significance. The congress reinforced his commitment to African dignity, cultural authenticity, and the necessity of overthrowing colonialism.
In some accounts, the Manchester congress is presented as a moment when Kenyatta was at his most radical, when he fully embraced anti-colonial ideology. Yet careful analysis suggests Kenyatta was already, by 1945, thinking about the transition from colonial to postcolonial rule and already contemplating the kind of state he and other nationalists might build. The congress affirmed his Pan-African solidarity, but it did not necessarily commit him to any particular model of postcolonial governance or economic organization.
The Manchester congress occurred just as World War II was ending and the postwar order was being constructed. The congress anticipated, by months, the formation of the United Nations and the beginning of the decolonization process that would dominate the next two decades. In this sense, Kenyatta's attendance at Manchester in 1945 positioned him at a pivotal moment when the old colonial world was beginning to crack and the shape of the new world was still contestable.
See Also
Kenyatta and Pan-Africanism Kenyatta in wartime Britain Kenyatta Rise to Power Kwame Nkrumah and Kenyatta Kenyatta Return to Kenya 1946
Sources
- Hakim Adi, Pan-Africanism and Communism: The Communist International, Africa and the Diaspora, 1919-1939 (Trenton: Africa World Press, 2013), pp. 201-245.
- George Padmore, Pan-Africanism or Communism? (Doubleday: Garden City, 1956), pp. 135-156.
- Cary Fraser, "An American Dilemma: Race and Realpolitik in the American Response to the Bandung Conference, 1955," in Odd Arne Westad (ed.), Reviewing the Cold War (London: Frank Cass, 2000), pp. 112-145.