ABSTRACT
This chapter describes that pan-Africanism is neither outdated nor incongruous concerning contemporary black people's realities because its fundamental purpose is not reducible to the defence of black people and black identity as an end in itself. It suggests going beyond all kinds of Afrocentrism to instead define black people's solidarity as part of the struggle against social inequalities and exclusion affecting human dignity regardless of African emancipation. The chapter keeps its distance from fundamentalist and etherealising approaches to African identity that, lead to what the author regard as the current sclerosis and impasse of pan-Africanist thought. It describes that global justice and human rights provide a crucial and unavoidable background for solidarity that goes beyond conservative approaches to pan-Africanism. The call for solidarity among black people was launched and carried out by Afro-American activists and Caribbean intellectuals such as Edward W. Blyden, Booker T. Washington, Marcus M. Garvey, W. E. B. Du Bois and Cooper.
