The Fight for Self-Determination in Africa

THE INTERWAR PERIOD HIST 1301 | History The Fight for Self-Determination in Africa The majority of Africans were not regarded as citizens of the empires they belonged to. Imperial nations took advantage of the colonies' mineral richness and other resources. They made no progress towards improving Africans' circumstances, and their claims to be "civilising" the continent were predicated on deeply held beliefs about White supremacy. However, many Africans' lives were altered by their involvement in World War I. Throughout the conflict, over a million Africans had fought. One effect was the feeling that their effort ought to be acknowledged with more political power. Another was becoming exposed to global concerns and realising that they were directly affected by the concept of selfdetermination. Beginning in the late 1800s, a number of organisations had started to push for more African participation in colonial administrations. The National Congress of British West Africa (NCBWA) was established in 1918 with the goal of pressuring the British government to delegate legislative authority to elected assemblies in its colonies in West Africa. The four British colonies in West Africa saw a political awakening as a result of this endeavour. The NCBWA aimed to make them function as a unified political entity. Many European officials had left Africa as a result of the war itself, giving Africans new responsibilities to play in the governance of their nations and giving them authority over a variety of services. In an attempt to increase production for the war effort, some imperial countries also put pressure on their African colonies, although they did not give these goods reasonable rates. After the war, a growing sense of self-power and obvious exploitation drove many Africans to support nationalist groups. As imperial nations sought to address their economic woes, the Great Depression brought with it growing demand to "do more" with their African colonies. Those who could foster stronger economic growth in the colonies would reap the rewards of expanded resources and build a colonial populace with more purchasing power for their own products. Still, in the 1930s, such progress was a gradual process. At the close of the 1920s, the British government passed the Colonial Development Act, which directed modest sums of money into its colonies in Africa. Larger investments, however, did not start to come into Africa until the Second World War. Early in the 20th century, a burgeoning Pan-African movement also emerged, seeking to bring African peoples together in order to attain greater freedom. W. E. B. Du Bois, an African American activist, organised the first Pan-African Congress, which convened in Paris in 1918. Its objective was to persuade the Paris Peace Conference to endorse African colonies' right to self-determination. Although it had little effect, it helped support the then-emerging concepts of African nationalism. The writings of Marcus Garvey had an additional impact on the rise of African nationalism. Born in Jamaica, Garvey spent a considerable amount of time residing in the United States. He established the Universal Negro Improvement Association in an effort to bring all persons of African heritage under one roof and under one political system. The particular plans for the transfer of African Americans from North America to Liberia, a country in West Africa, were the main focus of Garvey's work. But these "Back to Africa" ideas did not work out. There weren't enough resources to enable the move. Garvey's plans were rejected by the main African American civil rights organisation in the country, the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People (NAACP), and the migration never happened. Africans developed an Africanbased church structure as one method to show their freedom of thinking. Africa's Christian history has been closely linked to the missionary paradigm, which saw European settlers build church missions in order to propagate Christianity throughout the continent. With the belief that Africans should lead them instead of Europeans, whose churches were frequently perceived as merely an extension of colonialism, the autonomous African churches that started to emerge in the late 1800s were established in nations like Ethiopia and Nigeria. African-led churches' support for independence in religious concerns quickly gave way to support for it in political areas as well.