Fifth Pan-African Congress

The Fifth Pan-African Congress, organized by Kwame Nkrumah and George Padmore, is considered to be the most significant politically of all the PACs. Held in Manchester, just after the end of the Second World War, it comprised of 87 delegates, representing 50 organizations, and debated issues relating to 'the colour problem in Britain', 'oppression in South Africa' and 'the problems in the Caribbean'. Although rarely remembered today, it also marked 'the beginning of the end of European colonial rule in Africa and the Caribbean', and was attended by some of the most influential Black leaders, some of whom would go on to lead independence campaigns within their own countries. According to a report in The Black Scholar (1974), 1945 'marked the beginning of a second period in the development of Pan-African thought' when the movement 'took on a more militantly political tone and started demanding formal independence for the African colonies'.