African Liberation Day

Commentary

By Dagbayonoh Kiah Nyanfore II, PV Special Correspondent, Monrovia, Liberia

May 25, 2023, marks the 60th annual celebration of Africa Day, formerly the African Liberation Day. On this date 1963, the Organization of African Unity (OAU) was founded. It was an association of 31 independent African states, including Ghana, Egypt, Morocco, Liberia, Libya, Ethiopia, Sierra Leone, and Sudan. Five years before, on April 15, 1958, Ghana hosted the First Congress of Independent African States to discuss forming OAU. The organization vowed to help liberate the other African countries under European colonial rule. Liberia played an essential role in founding OAU. The government allowed future African leaders to travel to other countries under a Liberian passport.

In the US, we assembled at Malcolm X Park in Washington, DC, commemorating African Liberation Day in the 70s and 80s. We listened to speakers, such as Stokely Carmichael (Kwame Ture), discussing the African Liberation and the need to organize. We were committed to the struggle.

The Black civil rights struggle in the US helped motivate the African liberation movement. Future African leaders, including Kwame Nkrumah and Nnamdi Azikiwe, were students in America. They saw the struggle of Blacks against discrimination, segregation, and suppression. Upon returning home, they engaged in independence advocacy. The major colonial powers were Great Britain and France, dominating most parts of Africa. While British colonialism allowed relative freedom for its subjects to administer authority, the French incorporated its colonial countries as part of France.
There were two ideological groups in the OAU, now the African Union; one, the Casablanca Group, and two, the Monrovia Group. “The former advocated a progressive and Pan-African stance on African liberation, calling for the federation of African states. The latter took a conservative view, calling for a gradual approach to unity.” Patrice Lumumba of Congo, Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana, and Sekou Toure of Guinea were of the Casablanca Group, while Felix Houphouet-Boigny of Ivory Coast and William Tubman of Liberia were of the Monrovia Group.

In 1960, Liberia made positive history internationally. The country and Ethiopia, former members of the League of Nations, took the case of South West Africa against South Africa. Also, in the 1960s, Liberia became a beacon of the African independence struggle. But in the case, South Africa argued that Liberia did not have the moral standing to advocate against the alleged human suppression because in Liberia, the ruling elites, the Americo-Liberians, suppressed and oppressed the native majority. The late scholar Cyrenus Nyan Forh and others classified the Liberian situation as “Black Colonialism.”

In 1961, Sierra Leone gained independence under the leadership of Milton Margai. He and Siaka Stevens were members of the Sierra Leone Peoples Party, one of the oldest political parties and the current party in power in the country but Stevens later left to join the All Peoples Congress, a party of grassroots people from the slums of the east of Freetown.

Margai, a medical doctor was quiet; his brother, Albert, a lawyer, succeeded him when he passed away. Unlike the Americo-Liberians, in Sierra Leone, the Black American settlers, called Creoles, were not allowed to take power upon arrival by the British. They infact mostly wanted freedom from slavery and established a settlement they called Freetown which is today the capital of Sierra Leone. There were people living there like the Kru and Bassa of Liberia, before they came. Temne and Sherbro kings received the ex-slaves and gave them land to farm.. Since independence, the African natives, such as the Limbas, Lokos, Mendes, and Temne, have ruled the country.

The Black civil rights, the 60s Cultural Revolution, and the African liberation movement inspired the advocacy for change in Liberia. For example, the Progressive Alliance of Liberians (PAL), the Union of Liberian Associations in the Americas, the Awina Inc., and the Movement for Justice in Africa (MOJA) engaged in progressive advocacy in the 70s for multi-party democracy in Liberia. Thus in 1980, they helped end the True Whip Party government, which existed for over a hundred years.
Liberia and Sierra Leone, like other African nations, moved from a one-party government to multi-party democracy long after independence. Though African countries have vast productive lands and are no longer under colonial power, they depend on foreign nations for survival.