ABSTRACT
The idea of a united Africa can be traced back to the “scramble for Africa” and the atomization of the continent by European powers. At the beginning of the twentieth century, the voices of Marcus Garvey, W. E. B. Du Bois, George Padmore and Léopold Senghor spearheaded political campaigns against the destructive legacies of the Berlin Conference (1884-85).1 These pioneering ideas paved the way toward decolonization and triggered the belief that native and diaspora Africans should be unified as part of a global African community. The most notable herald of this message was Kwame Nkrumah, the first president of Ghana, who declared at independence:
We are going to see that we create our own African personality and identity. We again rededicate ourselves in the struggle to emancipate other countries in Africa; for our independence is meaningless unless it is linked up with the total liberation of the African continent.2
