Africa Must Unite by Kwame Nkrumah
Kwame Nkrumah’s seminal book, Africa Must Unite, published in the United States in 1963 by Frederick A. Praeger, stands as a foundational text of Pan-African political and economic philosophy. Dedicated to George Padmore and to the African Nation that must eventually be realized, the book serves as a historical analysis of the colonial legacy, a blueprint for post-independence state-building and socialist development in Ghana, and a passionate, detailed case for the total political and economic unification of the African continent. Introduction Nkrumah begins by capturing the revolutionary fervor sweeping the continent, invoking nationalist slogans such as Freedom!, Hedsole!, Sawaba!, and Uhuru!. He characterizes this “wind of change” not as an ordinary wind, but as a raging hurricane driving down the bastions of European empire. Millions of Africans and Asians have grown impatient with their historic relegation to “hewers of wood and drawers of water”. Nkrumah highlights the hypocrisy of Western powers who broadcast the slogans of democracy, the Atlantic Charter, and the United Nations Charter during two world wars to enlist the aid of colonized peoples, only to declare that these principles had no application to the enslaved worlds of imperialism and racial arrogance. This Western propaganda boomeranged as colonized …