Nkrumah’s dream of African unity remains essential for total liberation and prosperity of the continent. Africans will have themselves to blame if they continue to plough their narrow furrows instead of pooling their efforts, human and material resources, in order to create a cross-continental garden equipped to compete in the globalized 21st century.

Over two years into the International Decade for People of African Descent, very little has been done to achieve the objectives of the UN General Assembly declaration. It is not enough to make such a declaration. Serious efforts must be made to implement it for the benefit of Black people.

Taking advantage of media interest in protests over monuments to historical figures with racist views, activists in Halifax are pushing to remove commemorations of two individuals who helped conquer Africa. And there’s no lack of other such memorials to target across the Great White North.

Celebrating 90 years for Mama Sobukwe is a major feat. It is a sterling life which is exemplary for all, young and old, men and women, that one can serve, suffer and sacrifice for freedom. Her circumstances do not differ much from those of Afrikan women in the rural areas and at the bottom of the pyramid in the social structure.

Bankie was a Pan-Africanist in his own class. He would not want Pan-Africanists to fall into sentimentalism about his passing on to the Ancestral world. Rather he would want us to dedicate our work to the liberation of the African people, particularly working towards black people’s knowledge of self.

It is ironic that those who are criticizing Trump on Africa today seemed to have taken a vow of silence when Barack Obama befriended and wined and dined the most ruthless African dictators. Obama overlooked their deplorable human rights and corruption records in the name of counter-terrorism cooperation.

Trump’s myopic motto, ‘America First’, is complemented by an unspoken one, ‘Africa Never.’ His refusal to take notice of Africa will be deleterious to US-Africa relations. Luckily, one of the unintended benefits of Trump’s dissing of Africa is the realization of people of African origin worldwide that they need to pursue a common agenda.

Reparatory Justice must be the clarion call of the African Peoples at home and abroad. This was the Declaration of the 2^nd Kwame Nkrumah Intellectual and Cultural Festival which was held in Accra from 25 June to 1 July, 2017. The Festival was hosted by the Institute of African Studies of the University of Ghana under the auspices of the third Kwame Nkrumah Chair, Professor Horace Campbell.

The moral case for Black reparations has effectively been made, but the legal argument has met much frustration in the courts. The authors believe that the period after 1808, when U.S. participation in the international slave trade was outlawed, is key to clearing the legal hurdles to reparations.

Forty years after Steve Biko’s murder in detention, the world we live in has not changed fundamentally for Black people. Regardless of where you reside in the world, how educated you are, religious, progressive or nice you may think you are, if you are Black you are guaranteed the scorn, humiliation, violence and death that Biko and others had to confront.

Growing youth populations are placing social and political pressure on their governments to address the need for employment opportunities. But the dependence upon foreign markets for the export of natural resources and cash crops systematically undermines strategic planning within the present world economic order.

The 2nd Kwameh Nkrumah Pan-African Intellectual and Cultural Festival was held in Accra, Ghana, 25 June to 1 July 2017. The festival served as a vehicle for reflection and a springboard for new efforts to promote Pan-Africanism and transformation of the African world. Here is the experience of one youth volunteer at the event.

In spite of the positive elements of economic Garveyism, it is not appropriate for African liberation in the 21^st century. Garvey’s economic development approach was based on reproducing the exploitative system of capitalism, which would continue to oppress the Afrikan working-class.

Namibia is the only African country that conferred upon Castro its highest national honour. This is a big shame for Africa. Castro personally and the people of Cuba made great sacrifices for African liberation. The African Union should honour Castro and deliberately seek to deepen ties with the Cuban people.

It was the goal of the festival to offer an ideal platform for a review and critical re-assessment of urgent tasks necessary to deepen the technical and intellectual skills needed for training the next cadre of thinkers and practitioners. The festival served as a vehicle for reflection and a springboard for new research efforts to promote Pan-Africanism and structural transformation of the African world.

The overall objective of the conference was to establish modes of deepening African unity and to identify concrete practical steps for charting the way forward for pan-Africanism in the twenty-first century in the face of renewed imperialist aggression.

Celebrated Canadian soldier William Grant Stairs helped King Leopold II of Belgium conquer the resource-rich Katanga region of the Congo. Known for his heartless brutality, Stairs headed a heavily armed mission that swelled to 2,000. The goal of the expedition was to extend Leopold’s authority over Katanga to get a piece of the copper, ivory and gold trade.

The Fifth Continental African Conference of Solidarity with Cuba was convened June 6-8. It brought together over 200 delegates from 26 African states under the theme of “Intensifying Solidarity and Continuing the Legacy of Fidel and Che.”

A man of strong beliefs and convictions, Cde Toivo dedicated his life to the fight against oppression by the then South Africa authorities, rejecting apartheid South Africa’s reduction of sovereign Namibia into its colony. His life was the personification of solidarity, the quest for self-determination and unyielding commitment to the liberation of his people.

America’s Africa policies have consistently remained destabilizing and predatory over the decades, despite the well-choreographed pretenses. It is this imperialism that has impeded the capacity of African nations to direct their future. Despite Africa’s vast mineral and agricultural wealth and labor power, a renewed debt crisis compounded by US interference is reversing the modest gains made in past years.