Ghana becomes independent

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...

The General Assembly adopted a declaration stating that no one should be held in slavery or servitude. Women and delegates from the Global South, including Hansa Mehta of India, helped shape its...

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...

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

People protested pass laws that controlled Black movement under apartheid. Police killed 69 people and injured many others. The massacre made apartheid a sharper international issue and linked...

Nigeria gained independence after British colonial rule. The new state entered international diplomacy as a major African polity, while its societies continued to reckon with the political and...

Resolution 1514 declared that colonial domination should end and tied self-determination to human rights. It did not erase the economic structures created by slavery and empire, but anticolonial...

Jamaica became independent after centuries of plantation slavery and British colonial rule. Independence changed sovereignty but did not itself undo land concentration, racial hierarchy, or economic...