Did you know about Africa Liberation day?

You got to praise the red, the black, and the green.
Brothers and Sisters are being redeemed.
You got to open up your eyes and see.
We're on our way to being free.

I wonder how many readers knew that May 25 was Africa Liberation Day. No need to be ashamed if you did not notice it. I am not sure if many did either in many African countries and among Africans in the diaspora.



ALD is the direct descendent of Africa Freedom Day created by the Conference of African States convened under the auspices of the Nkrumah government in Accra, Ghana. April 15, 1957 was designated as Africa Freedom Day. The eight heads of states at that meeting intended Africa Freedom Day to be a day marking their renewed commitment to the liberation/decolonization of the whole African continent and all it's people. When the Organization of African Unity (OAU) was created in May of 1963, the founding delegates proclaimed May 25, 1963 African Liberation Day (ALD), as the successor commemoration day to Africa Freedom Day. Since then African peoples have observed ALD all over the world. The first A-APRP sponsored ALD was held in 1976 under the slogan, "Take ALD Back to Africa", and was convened in Washington, DC.



In years gone by, the day used to be marked officially and unofficially celebrated by many groups in Africa and the diaspora. Now there are only scattered activities by activists who have not given up on the belief that ‘a different Africa is possible’. It remains a public holiday in a few countries.



It is a day of solidarity with the various struggles of African peoples for justice, equality, human dignity, freedom and liberation. It was started on April 15, 1958 and called Africa Freedom Day, as a result of the first All-African Peoples conferences called by the indomitable Kwame Nkrumah, foremost Pan- Africanist of all times, a fact remembered and honoured by Africans worldwide who voted him ‘Greatest African of the Millennium in 2000 despite orchestrated campaigns by supporters of other living or dead claimants.

The two conferences of 1958 were called by Nkrumah as Prime Minister of newly independent Ghana, to show solidarity and plan strategies for the total liberation of Africa from colonialism. Those conferences brought together the few independent countries of Africa and the representatives of nationalist groups and liberation movements from across Africa and a few observers from the diaspora.

Frantz Fanon was there with the Algerian Liberation Movement against French colonialism, FLN and it was in the second of those two conferences that the charismatic Patrice Lumumba was introduced to the world and three years after had led Congo to freedom but was assassinated in a grand conspiracy between erstwhile colonial interests and local reactionaries aided and abetted by complacent UN and global powers namely the US, France and Belgium. Does the story not sound only too familiar more than four decades later?



Nkrumah’s famous dictum that ‘the independence of Ghana is meaningless without the total liberation of Africa’ is still true today and most relevant. While then it was regarded as the utopian wish of a romantic Pan-Africanist in the face of today’s dual threat of recolonisation and rapacious globalisation, those words should be made the opening sentence of the national anthem of every country in Africa. In the past few years, Africa has been returning to the drawing board of Pan- Africanism.

The new African Union with all its contradictions and the various struggles within and without it represent an advance from the past while we seek further clarity and decisive action towards the future.


"African Liberation Day for us is only an instrument to help organize our people..."
Ancestor Kwame Ture, Central Committee Member, A-APRP

It offers a wider scope for all Africans to be part of the solution instead of just complaining about the many problems. Instead of constantly enumerating what this leader or that leader is doing wrong, why do you not ask yourself what, no matter how small, you are doing as an individual, a member of an organisation, part of a community, your profession and in whatever station you are, to advance the cause of Africa and the dignity of the African?

ASE! ASE! ASE!
If you wanna keep a dream alive try Baba Kwame's Dream of a Liberated AFrika!!!!

If people are no longer connecting to the historical inspirations for Africa Day why don’t we agitate for a proclamation of an African Union Day (July 9) as symbol of our commitment to make Pan- Africanism relevant for our times and the younger generation?

It should be a publicly celebrated day in every country. Our leaders and diplomats should be ashamed of themselves for donning their best suits to attend cocktails marking European day but forgetting Africa day!!!!




http://www.newvision.co.ug/D/8/20/436299