Ending British Rule in Africa: Writers in a Common Cause

On the eve of World War II, a small, impoverished group of Africans and West Indians in London dared to imagine the unimaginable: the end of British rule in Africa. In books, pamphlets, and periodicals, they launched an anti-colonial campaign that used publishing as a pathway to liberation. West Indians George Padmore, C. L. R. James, and Ras Makonnen; Kenya’s Jomo Kenyatta and Sierra Leone’s I. T. A. Wallace Johnson - these were writers in a common cause: envisioning Africa freed of European rule. Joined by South African Peter Abrahams during the war and the Gold Coast’s Kwame Nkrumah toward the war’s end, the community expanded its reach through ties with Americans W. E. B. Du Bois and Richard Wright, Nigerian Nnamdi Azikiwe, and West Indians Eric Williams and Arthur Lewis - a powerful array of committed political intellectuals. Publishing in Britain, the United States, and across the colonial world, they built an international base of support. When British authorities banned and seized their publications in the colonies, they made their point: that colonial rule was oppressive and inconsistent with the democratic ideals Britain claimed at home.
Ending British Rule in Africa draws on previously unexplored manuscript and archival collections to trace the development of this publishing community from its origins in George Padmore’s American and Comintern years through the independence of Ghana in the 1957 - a case study of publishing’s role in promoting political change. This book will be of interest to scholars and general readers interested in social movements, diaspora studies, empire and African history, publishing history, literary history, and cultural studies.