The Spirit of Accra

...This action impressed many of the delegates and reinforced Nkrumah's claim to Pan-African leadership...

...However, the initial contacts have been made, and in some cases time and frustration may render the standing offers more attractive...

...In the unusual milieu of a conference on Africa, run by Africans, in a State governed by Africans, the delegates parlayed their common denominator of anti-colonialism into a psychological enthusiasm and moral sustenance for nationalist movements throughout the continent...

...by conference chairman Tom Mboya: For Kenya's young nationalist leader presided over the conference with a firmness and maturity which did much to prevent the gathering from degenerating into an anti-Western free-for-all...

...The secretary-generalship was left temporarily vacant with a young Ghanaian to act in the interim as administrative secretary...

...In this respect, the conferences served to single out two questions crucial to American relations with Africa...

...Such was the ingenuous, human spirit of Accra, the "African personality" which represents a major foundation and hope for the future political unity of Africa...

...W. E. B. Du Bois and Mrs...

...The easily avoidable impression of a lack of interest on the part of the American Government constituted a slight quickly felt and resented by sensitive African nationalists who want above all else to be taken seriously...

...A varied assortment of unofficial representatives were there, including scholars, journalists and at least two distinct "activist" elements...

...The chairman politely appealed to them to relinquish these seats to the slower-moving official delegates and observers, including many Europeans, for whom they were reserved...

...The conference was an exuberant display of "African personality...

...Finally, the plight of Ghana's own United Party parliamentary opposition, which argues that Nkrumah intends to emulate Sekou Toure's single-party system, as shown by the arrest without trial of many of its leaders, has provoked misgivings among some African leaders as to Ghana's qualifications for Pan-African stewardship...

...Equally important, for the first time the conference brought together diverse and representative nationalist leaders from North Africa, English-speaking West, East and Central Africa, Ethiopia, Guinea, Togoland and the Cameroons, as well as minority elements from the African republics of the French Community...

...Therefore, though the principle of African union was agreed upon by the overwhelming majority of the delegates, the leadership for such unification was left in doubt...

...These latter two could take real satisfaction in their past sponsorship of a visit to the U.S...

...And to what extent are American ties to Portugal and the Union of South Africa to be allowed to jeopardize relations with an entire continent...

...Leaders from Nigeria, especially the capable Action Group delegation (Western Region), made it clear that the 371 million people of the Nigerian Federation scheduled for independence in 1960, rather than the seven million people of the Ghana-Guinea Union, should be the motor force for West African unity...

...Responsible Pan-African nationalism offers genuine opportunity for Western statesmanship that should not be lost to Soviet initiative THE SPIRIT OF ACCRA By John A. Marcum ACCRA THE RECENT All-African Peoples Conference produced the anticipated list of public resolutions and acts: It condemned European colonialism and rule by resident European minorities, it supported both immediate independence for all African states and Pan-African unity, and it established a permanent Pan-African organization at Accra...

...On the less publicized side, the Accra meeting served as the occasion for some important diplomatic and political maneuvers destined to weigh heavily upon the future of Africa...

...Immediately, without grumbling, several hundred people moved to the wings of the hall...

...Illustrative is the fact that though it was agreed in principle that a Guinean would be selected to head the secretariat of the new permanent organization, the actual Guinean nominee, Abdoulaye Diallo, failed to get steering committee approval because of his past association with the Communist-controlled World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU...

...A significant and little advertised aspect of the Accra Conference was the quiet and disquieting contact work done by members of three contingents, the United Arab Republic (UAR), with an assist from the Afro-Asian Solidarity Committee, the African Independence Party (PAI Communist) from Dakar and the affable observers from the Soviet Union...

...They were offered exile in Cairo, arms from Eastern Europe and links with African and European Communist students in Europe...

...The result has been the rapid regrouping of a major portion of former French West Africa into a potentially rival political force, the Federation of Mali...

...The United Arab Republic and Afro-Asian Solidarity Committee delegations dragged their feet on the issue of establishing a permanent organization at Accra, for such an act represents a threat to Cairo's "African mission...

...At the closing plenary session, the public, which had been waiting at length for the doors to open, rushed in to occupy the Community Center chairs...

...However, opposition to a Ghanaled African union promptly manifested itself at the conference...

...The United States was not entirely absent from Accra...

...It is perhaps not irrevelant to note that Sekou Toure recently named Abdoulaye Diallo as Guinean Minister-Resident in Accra, where the former vice-president of the WFTU may still be considered available for Pan-African responsibilities...

...Meanwhile, young nationalists from "hard core" colonial areas like Angola and the Union of South Africa were thoroughly worked over by the UAR-PAI-USSR triumvirate...

...Their work was given an initial send-off when Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev and Chinese Communist Premier Chou En-lai sent greetings at the opening of the conference...

...By way of contrast, it required great labor to get an official expression of interest by Vice President Richard Nixon toward the end of the conference...

...The one major, governing party from an African republic of the French Community in attendance, the Senegalese Progressive Union, spoke for several Community republics in placing a priority upon union within French-speaking Africa...

...John A. Marcum, an assistant profeseor of political science at Colgate University, is currently engaged in research in French West and Equatorial Africa under a grant from the Ford Foundation...

...At least some of these offers were rejected...

...It remains nevertheless true that in terms of long-range governmental spade-work, the U.S., the only major Western nation which was not disqualified as a colonial power and which might have displayed an interest in the Accra Conference without upsetting its European alliances, chose to leave the field to anti-Western forces...

...One was represented conspicuously by Mrs...

...A second and more positive role was played by George Houser and the American Committee on Africa and by Irving Brown of the AFL-CIO...

...Prime Minister Kwame Nkrumah and Guinea's President Sekou Toure set the stage by announcing the Ghana-Guinea Union shortly before the conference opened...

...Paul Robeson, the former of whom read a melodramatic, enthusiastically received, fellow-traveling exhortation from her ailing husband...

...Finally, an appraisal of the Accra Conference must take into account the particular climate, the tumultuous good humor, which characterized the gathering from its first session, and which persisted despite the tribulations of inadequate translation services, long, repetitious speeches and tedious hours of rushed, ill-organized committee work...

...Readers will remember his report on the newly-proclaimed African republic of Guinea, ''Report on Guinea," in our issue of December 1, 1958...

...The historic nature of this continent-wide convocation was dramatized by the presence of African delegates from the Belgian Congo, Angola and the Union of South Africa...

...Then, after the gathering had joined with great pleasure in singing a variety of spiritual-style "freedom songs," and while Nkrumah waited patiently on stage to deliver his solemn, statesmanlike closing address, the chairman cited lists of food donations to the conference dining hall from Ghanaian farmers and announced that a pair of car keys had been found and turned into the secretariat office where they might be claimed by their owner...

...How long will leaders in countries such as Kenya, Nyasaland, the Union of South Africa and Angola guard a faith in the efficacy of political evolution by pacific means...

...In this light, the public and private reception reserved for Nkrumah on his forthcoming tour of the Nigerian Federation will be very significant...