First Pan-African Conference opens in London

After defeating French forces, Haiti declares independence and becomes the first independent Black republic. The state challenged the racial order of Atlantic slavery and inspired both hope among...

Thousands of enslaved people in the British colony of Demerara rise against plantation slavery. Their organized action, shaped by local networks and plans, was met with military repression; it also...

A large strike and uprising by enslaved people begins in western Jamaica. Sam Sharpe and other organizers used church, communication and community networks to demand freedom; colonial forces crushed...

Protesters led by Paul Bogle march to the Morant Bay courthouse amid land dispossession, poverty and political exclusion under colonial rule. The repression that followed, including executions and...

Ethiopian forces defeat an Italian invasion at Adwa, preserving Ethiopia’s sovereignty in the face of European imperial expansion. Adwa became a powerful symbol for African and diaspora anticolonial...

African leaders establish the South African Native National Congress, later renamed the African National Congress. It sought to contest racial exclusion through political organization and petitioning;...

Marcus Garvey organizes the UNIA in Jamaica, building a mass movement around Black dignity, self-help, African redemption and diaspora connection. Its pan-African vision attracted working people...

W. E. B. Du Bois and other activists convene a congress during the Paris Peace Conference. Delegates raised colonial labor, land and political rights before imperial powers and the new League of...

The UNIA’s convention in New York draws a large international gathering and stages a public assertion of Black political presence. Its Declaration of Rights of the Negro Peoples of the World and...

The second congress begins a series of meetings in London, Brussels and Paris. It develops demands for African representation, labor protections and an end to colonial exploitation, while the format...