GEORGE PADMORE
GEORGE PADMORE
One of the Fathers of African Liberation
Born Malcolm Nurse in Trinidad. He also graduated high school in Trinidad. By 1924 he came to the United States attending Fisk University. He later studied law at Howard University. By the age of 23 Padmore was a leading figure in the Revolutionary African intelligentsia. Although, by exclusively economic standards, Padmore might be categorized as a part of the African petty bourgeois, his speaking, writing and most importantly, his consistent positive activism revealed that he had betrayed and abandoned the capitalist values of the bourgeois. He had consciously committed class suicide and had identified himself - by his deeds - with the African working class and the masses of his people. Soon after his arrival in the usa he joined the Communist Party, taking the cover name of George Padmore. He became an important figure in the us Communist world. In 1929, Padmore went to Russia and became head of the Negro Bureau of the Communist International Labor Unions. This body was one of several that sought to agitate and mobilize Black people in the colonial world and the usa. While in the communist party George Padmore became the chief of the Communist International's African Bureau. In the early 1930s, Stalin's regime conceded to capitalist pressure to reduce its anti colonial activity in order to gain USSR acceptance from the west. As a result of this Padmore immediately resigned from the Communist Party. He was formally expelled by them in 1934. This marked his break with the USSR. From this point on Padmore's interest shifted towards Africa and Pan-Africanism.
Padmore moved to London in 1935. He reunited with his childhood friend C.L.R.
James. He helped to form the International African Service Bureau. During the
1930s and 1940s his dwelling became the center for anti colonial struggle and
political study groups. Some of the participants included C.L.R. James, Paul Roberson, Amy Ashwood Garvey and Kwame Nkrumah. In 1944, Padmore, along with the
likes of Nkrumah, Anna J. Cooper, W.E.B. DuBois, Amy Jacques Garvey
and Amy Ashwood Garvey, helped to organize the 5 th Pan-African Conference (5th
PAC) in Manchester. The 5th Pan-African Conference has proven to be one of the most important and strategically decisive conferences
held. As a result of the 5th PAC and Padmore's influence Nkrumah and other
African leaders returned to Africa to lead a nationalist movement. Padmore and
Nkrumah saw the African as the hope for a free, united Africa.
The bond shared
between George Padmore and Kwame Nkrumah was like that of brothers. When Ghana
became independent, Padmore became Nkrumah's Advisor on African Affairs. Padmore
helped to organize the first meeting of Independent Africa's Heads of States. He
also assisted in organizing the All African Peoples Congress.
George Padmore and other Trinidadians have played a significant part in the Pan-African movement. Men like Edward Wilmont Blyden, H. Sylvester Williams, and Kwame Ture helped to develop the Pan-African movement to new and higher levels. One of George Padmore’s lasting legacies to the African Revolution and world revolutionaries struggle was his ability of a master organizer, Par-Excellence. He would be the ideological grand daddy to men like Paul Roberson, C.L.R. James, Du Bois and Nkrumah and generations of African freedom fighters to come after the greats just mentioned. Not only was Padmore an immense, and dexterous organization builder, but also he met the awesome responsibilities of a revolutionary by being an inexhaustible writer and prolific speaker. As a Revolutionary Pan-Africanist Padmore was conscious to the need to place the highest of emphasis on culture. He saw all humanity as being part of one race the human race, and this race was subdivided into cultures with all cultures having a relativity of equal ness. For him and for all Revolutionary Pan-Africanist, there are no superior or inferior cultures. It was his ideological convictions that ran him into ideological divergence and categorical contention with Russia and with Marxist-Leninism!
George Padmore may rightly be regarded as one of the fathers of African liberation. He devoted a lifetime to the cause of African people; his propaganda and agitation kept the issues constantly alive world - wide. Padmore was one of the men and women who inspired the struggle of the African woman / man for freedom from oppression . He inspired them to love and have pride in African people and our African culture.
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