Universal Declaration of Human Rights affirms freedom from slavery

The convention committed states to suppress slavery and the slave trade and defined slavery in international law. Its adoption marked a major diplomatic recognition, but colonial forced labor and...

Convention No. 29 required ratifying states to suppress forced or compulsory labor, but permitted exceptions including some colonial public works. The colonial exception exposes how international...

Italy’s invasion of Ethiopia provoked condemnation and solidarity across Africa and the diaspora. The attack on one of the few African states then retaining sovereignty exposed the limits of the...

The Manchester congress brought trade unionists, students, and political organizers into a program demanding African self-government and an end to colonial exploitation. Women organizers and delegates...

The Charter established the United Nations and affirmed self-determination as a principle, while colonial empires remained in place. Delegates from colonized and newly independent societies pressed...

Newly independent and anticolonial states met to oppose colonialism and racial discrimination and to assert political independence. Bandung widened South-South solidarity, building a diplomatic...

The supplementary convention addressed debt bondage, serfdom, forced marriage, and child transfer, widening international attention beyond the formal legal status of slavery. Its adoption followed...

Writers and artists from Africa and the diaspora gathered to debate colonialism, culture, and Black identity. The congress made cultural production a field of anticolonial struggle and built...

Ghana’s independence from British colonial rule became a landmark for African and diasporic liberation movements. Nkrumah’s government welcomed Pan-African organizing and framed sovereignty as part of...

The conference gathered anticolonial parties and movements from across the continent, including organizations still fighting colonial rule. Its resolutions demanded independence and solidarity,...