APWH DBQ : Decolonization and Nationalism in Africa
Use the following resources to answer the DBQ prompt below.
Question 1
Evaluate the extent to which nationalism affected the process of decolonization in Africa in the 20th century.
Group 2
Document 1:
“To .. all the dispossessed youth of Africa: for perpetuation of communion with ancestral spirits through the fight for African freedom, and in the firm faith that the dead, the living, and the unborn will unite to rebuild the destroyed shrines."
Source: Dedication in the book Facing Mount Kenya by Jomo Kenyatta, 1938. Kenyatta would later become Kenya’s first president.
Group 3
Document 2:
“We are not ashamed to have been an age-long patient people. We continue willingly to sacrifice and strive. But we are unwilling to starve any longer while doing the world’s drudgery in order tot support by our poverty and ignorance false aristocracy and discarded imperialism.”
Source: Statement issued at the Fifth Pan-African Congress held in 1945 in Manchester, England.
Group 4
Document 3:
“In these days and in such circumstances Egypt has resolved to show the world that when small nations decide to preserve their sovereignty, they will do that all right and that when these small nations are fully determined to defend their rights and maintain their dignity, they will undoubtedly succeed in achieving their ends… Today the Egyptian people are fully conscious of their sovereign rights and Arab nationalism is fully awakened to its new destiny… Those who attack Egypt will never leave Egypt alive. We shall fight a regular war, a total war, a guerrilla war.”
Source: President Nasser, “Denouncement of the Proposal for a Canal Users’ Association,” September 15, 1956
Group 5
Document 4:
That new Africa is ready to fight his own battles and show that after all the Black man is capable of managing his own affairs. We are going to demonstrate to the world, to the other nations, that we are prepared to lay our foundation - our own African personality. We have won the battle and again rededicate ourselves … OUR INDEPENDENCE IS MEANINGLESS UNLESS IT IS LINKED UP WITH THE TOTAL LIBERATION OF AFRICA.
Source: Kwame Nkrumah, speech at Independence Day celebrations, Ghana, 1957 At long last, the battle has ended! And thus, Ghana, your beloved country is free forever!
Group 6
Document 5:
“The most striking of all the impressions I have formed since I left London a month ago is of the strength of this African national consciousness. In different places it takes different forms, but it is happening everywhere. The wind of change is blowing through this continent, and, whether we like it or not, this growth of national consciousness is a political fact. We must all accept it as a fact, and our national policies must take account of it.”
Source: Speech by British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan to the Parliament of South Africa in Cape Town, 1960, after a tour visiting British colonies in Africa.
Group 7
Document 6:
Source: Album cover for the music compilation from the First World Festival of Negro Arts, 1966 event organized and hosted by Senegalese President Leopold Senghor. The event showcased Black literature, dance, visual art, and performances from across the continent and the United States.
Group 8
Document 7:
“Never, never, and never again shall it be that this beautiful land will again experience the oppression of one by another… We enter into a covenant that we shall build a society in which all South Africans, both black and white, will be able to walk tall, without and fear in their hearts, assured of their inalienable right to human dignity – a rainbow nation at peace with itself and the world.”
Source: Nelson Mandela’s Presidential Inaugural Address, Pretoria, South Africa, 1994
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