Selections from Global African History Speeches
Black Past
Speeches delivered by people of African ancestry around the world which have contributed to the shaping of Global African history. These speeches serve as a starting point for much more inclusive descriptions and discussions that appear in other sources.
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Black Past · 4 May 1994
On May 9, 1994, Nelson Mandela was officially inaugurated as the first democratically elected President of South Africa chosen by the majority of the nation’s citizens. His inauguration address given …
Black Past · 10 December 1993
In 1993 South African political activist Nelson Mandela shared the annual Nobel Peace Prize with South African President F.W. de Klerk. Mandela’s Nobel Peace Prize address on December 10, 1993 …
Black Past · 13 April 1993
After Nelson Mandela was released from prison in 1990, he and representatives of the African National Congress (ANC) began a public period of negotiations in preparation for majority rule in …
Black Past · 11 February 1990
In 1990 the South African government released Nelson Mandela from Victor Verster Prison in Paarl, South Africa after more than 28 years of incarceration including more than 20 years in …
Black Past · 11 April 1983
In the following address given in Berlin, East Germany on April 11, 1983 at celebrations marking the centennial of the death of Karl Marx, Samora Machel, discusses the relevance of …
Black Past · 30 August 1974
Mangosuthu Gatsha Buthelezi emerged in the 1970s as one of the moderate black leaders in South Africa’s anti-apartheid campaign. In 1970 he was appointed leader of the KwaZulu Territorial Authority …
Black Past · 18 August 1973
On August 18, 1973, Hudson William Edison Ntsanwisi, then Chief Minister of the “independent homeland” of Gazankulu in South Africa, was scheduled to present an address titled “Petty Apartheid” before …
Black Past · 15 August 1973
In 1973 attorney K.M.N. Guzana was leader of the opposition Democratic Party in the national legislature of the theoretically independent nation of Transkei, one of the former homelands created by …
Black Past · 1 July 1973
By the early 1970s South African cleric Desmond Mpilo Tutu had not yet achieved worldwide fame as an opponent of Apartheid. Nonetheless, in a July 1973 paper delivered to the …
Black Past · 15 June 1973
By the 1970s Lucy Mvubelo had become a powerful force in the black South African Labor Union Movement. Born in Johannesburg in 1920 she first joined the Garment Workers Union …
Black Past · 1 December 1972
In a speech before the Scandinavian Institute for African Affairs, Uppsala, Sweden, in December, 1972, Mangosuthu Gatsha Buthelezi, then the Chief Executive Officer of the KwaZulu Territorial Authority, describes his …
Black Past · 14 February 1971
Sese Seko Ngbendu Waza Banga Mobutu, originally known as Joseph Desire Mobutu, served as Patrice Lumumba’s private secretary before being appointed Chief of Staff and second in command of the …
Black Past · 7 February 1970
Samora Machel, the leader of the Mozambique Liberation Front and first president of independent Mozambique (1975-1986), was a Marxist-Leninist. In his speech, given in Maputo, the capital, on February 7, …
Black Past · 3 February 1969
In a speech celebrating the life of Dr. Eduardo Mondlane, leader the Mozambican Liberation Front (FRELIMO) who was assassinated by Portuguese agents on February 3, 1969, Amilcar Cabral, leader of …
Black Past · 1 April 1968
By 1968 the freedom struggle for Namibia was a two year old guerilla war against South African control of the region. That struggle was directed by the Southwest African People’s …
Black Past · 13 July 1966
In 1966 Julius Kambarage Nyerere was President of the Republic of Tanzania. When President Kenneth Kaunda of neighboring Zambia became the first Chancellor of the University of Zambia when it …
Black Past · 1 January 1966
In 1966 Amilcar Cabral was the Secretary-General and President of the War Council of the P.A.I. G. C. (African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde). In January …
Black Past · 15 May 1964
In 1963 Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe was selected as the first President of Nigeria. The following year he gave a public lecture on the benefits of tribalism in forging national unity …
Black Past · 1 November 1963
On November 17, 1948 the University of Ibadan became the first modern institution of higher education in Nigeria when it began as an external college of the University of London. …
Black Past · 1 June 1963
Es’kia Mphahlele was a South African writer, professor, and political activist who was critical of the nation’s apartheid regime. He subsequently spent twenty years in exile from South Africa between …
Black Past · 24 May 1963
A speech by Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa on the occasion of the creation of the Organization of African Unity (OAU) at Addis Abba, Ethiopia, on May 24, 1963.
Black Past · 23 May 1963
On May 25, 1963 the Organization for African Unity (OAU) was established with a permanent headquarters in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Haile Selassie, Emperor of Ethiopia, was selected as the first …
Black Past · 1 January 1962
In January 1962, Nelson Mandela, the emerging leader of the South African campaign against apartheid, spoke at a convention of Pan African advocates meeting in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. In that …
Black Past · 11 December 1961
In December 1960, Albert Luthuli, President of the African National Congress of South Africa, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his role in the struggle against apartheid. The South …
Black Past · 1 October 1960
On Saturday, October 1, 1960, Nigeria became an independent nation. What follows is Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa’s speech delivered at Tafawa Balewa Square in Lagos at the Independence Ceremony.
Black Past · 19 July 1960
The political situation in the Congo deteriorated rapidly after it gained independence on June 30, 1960. By July Belgian paratroopers had arrived in Stanleyville, the capital of Katanga province, attacking …
Black Past · 1 October 1959
On October 2, 1958 Sekou Touré, proclaimed Guinea’s independence from France and became its first president. One year later he gave a speech in Conakry, the capital in which he …
Black Past · 31 July 1959
On July 31, 1959, Nigeria was slightly more than a year away from full independence from Great Britain. On that day Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, Premier of Eastern Nigeria and National …
Black Past · 22 March 1959
By 1959 Patrice Lumumba was the most prominent nationalist and independence leader in the Congo. His fame was also spreading beyond the nation’s boundaries as reflected in this speech given …
Black Past · 3 February 1959
In 1957 Ghana became the first nation in sub-Saharan Africa to win its independence from a colonial power (Great Britain). The independence struggle was led by Kwame Nkrumah who became …
Black Past · 11 December 1958
On December 11, 1958, 34 year old Patrice Lumumba, president of the Congolese National Movement, spoke at the Assembly of African Peoples, an international Pan African Conference sponsored by Kwame …
Black Past · 1 September 1957
By 1957 Nigeria was clearly on the path toward independence. In preparation the British Government named Abubakar Tafawa Balewa the first Prime Minister of the soon to be independent nation …
Black Past · 1 January 1957
In 1957 the Nigerian House of Representatives passed a motion requesting Independence from Great Britain and calling on that colonial power to officially set the date for that Independence as …
Black Past · 18 May 1955
On May 18, 1955 the Eastern House of Assembly, the regional legislature for Eastern Nigeria, moved a resolution to established the first university in Eastern Nigeria. Nnamdi Azikiwe gave a …
Black Past · 12 May 1953
In 1953 when Northern Nigerians were beginning to consider secession from the Nigerian colony that would soon be a nation, Nnamdi Azikiwe gave a speech before the caucus of his …
Black Past · 23 October 1949
Nigerian independence leader Nnamdi Azikiwe appeared before the Plenary Session of the British Peace Congress held in London on October 23, 1949. He used that occasion to educate his audience …
Black Past · 23 October 1949
As the post-World War II campaign for African independence heated up, young leaders such as Nigeria’s Nnamdi Azikiwe (who would eventually become the first President of Nigeria), carried their arguments …
Black Past · 25 June 1949
In the following address given eleven years before Nigerian independence, Nnamdi Azikiwe calls for self-determination for the Ibo as they along with other ethnic groups march toward an inevitably free …
Black Past · 1 January 1949
In 1949 it was far from clear as to whether or when Great Britain would grant independence to Nigeria. Nonetheless 45 year old Nnamdi Azikiwe had already emerged as one …
Black Past · 1 January 1936
Without warning, Italian armed forces invaded Ethiopia on October 3, 1935, quickly defeated the Ethiopian Army, and forced Emperor Haile Selassie into exile first in Palestine and eventually in Great …
Black Past · 1 January 1927
Lamine Senghor was an early Senegalese nationalist. Born in Kaolack, Senegal in 1889, he served in the French Army between 1915 and 1919 and returned to Paris in 1922. Senghor …
Black Past · 1 January 1926
John Williamson Kuyé, an early 20th Century advocate of African self-rule was in many respects part of the first wave of African nationalists. Born in Bathurst, Gambia, on November 10, …
Black Past · 1 January 1924
In the years immediately following World War I, Prince Marc Kojo Tovalou Houènou was one of a small number of French Speaking Africans to openly challenge French rule on that …
Black Past · 1 January 1919
Orishatuke Faduma, born James Davies in Sierra Leone, was a late 19th and early 20th Century African nationalist. He studied at both London University and Yale University in the 1880s …
Black Past · 1 January 1906
Pixley Isaka Seme was one of the first western-educated Africans to challenge the European colonialism then sweeping across the continent. Born in Natal, South Africa, Eme was educated at Columbia …
Black Past · 1 January 1902
Rev. Dr. Mojola Agbebi, born April 10, 1860 as David Brown Vincent in Western Nigeria, was a leading proponent of “Ethiopianism,” which advocated an African-centered Christianity. In the 1880s, as …
In 1967 Chinua Achebe, one of Nigeria’s most prominent writers, supported the secession of Biafra from the Nigerian nation. In this 1968 speech he describes why he supported the breakaway …
By 1962 Nnamdi Azikiwe (1904-1996) was a well-known independence leader in Nigeria. As President of the Nigerian Senate he was one of the most powerful individuals in the government of …
In 1962, Nelson Mandela, leader of Umkhonto we Sizwe (Spear of the Nation) the armed wing of the African National Congress, was convicted by a South African court of traveling …
Milton Apollo Obote was the first Prime Minister of Uganda from the time of its independence in 1962 until 1966 when he became President of the Republic of Uganda. In …