Global "Networks of Solidarity" : Black Newspapers and Decolonization in Africa, 1937-1957

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Edeagu, Ngozi:
Global "Networks of Solidarity" : Black Newspapers and Decolonization in Africa, 1937-1957.
2020
Event: Global Histories of Colonialism , November 5-6, 2020 , Queen’s University, Canada (virtual).
(Conference item: Workshop , Paper )

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The academic literature on anti-colonial movements and the attendant decolonization of African colonies have emphasized trans-Atlantic journalistic “networks of solidarity”. Newspapers became a conduit for the global circulation of ideas while the political contestations in colonial Africa reverberated in black American communities where they too similarly faced forms of “political discrimination, social exclusion, or rights denial” (Thomas and Thompson, 2018). Yet the literature is largely silent on the global journalistic networks of solidarity between two key figures in the decolonization process—George Padmore and Nnamdi Azikwe. Padmore, in his capacity as London correspondent for several lack American newspapers like the Chicago Defender, “ferreted out colonial rulers’ misdeeds and news of revolt … and distributed these reports on several continents” (Polsgrove 2009, xii). He was also the African correspondent for the Associated Negro Press—a syndication service of 95 percent of black American newspapers (von Eschen 1997, 8). Thus, between 1934 and 1949 he had produced about a thousand articles for black American newspapers (James 2016, 55) enabling them to regularly report on news from Africa. Azikiwe used his chain of newspapers to fight the oppression of the entire black race. By 1947, he was made an honorary member of the National Negro Newspaper Publishers' Association. Yet, his journalistic links with the U.S. started during his student years as a correspondent for several black American newspapers including the Baltimore African American. He first met Padmore in 1927 and their relationship continued when Padmore wrote 508 known articles for Azikiwe’s West African Pilot till the 1950s (James 2015, 81). As newspapers created an “imagined diaspora” and unified anti-colonialists across the globe, this paper explores the global solidarity between Padmore and Azikiwe in the decolonization era.