Early 1958, Sierra Leone. Part of a collection of three, purchased from an estate in the United States, all covering independence era Freetown. This commemorates the April 1958 Conference of Independent African States, convened by President Kwame Nkrumah in Accra, Ghana. It was the first summit of post-colonial African leaders, which paved the way for the OAU, and the precursor to the now more celebrated All-African Peoples’ Conference, held in December of the same year.
The fabric includes all the African heads of states of free nations attending, including Nkrumah, Nasser, Haile Salassie (rendered too much like Abraham Lincoln to American eyes), Tubman, Senussi, Bourguiba, and others.
Note that Sierra Leone is also picked out on the map. This, with the provenance, makes it seem certain to have been made there or for a Sierra Leonean audience.
Sierra Leone’s independence was still four years away, but there was a vibrant pan-African and independence political movement, especially in the “crown colony” around Freetown beginning before the 1930s, and spreading to the whole nation after WWII.
While the dominant SLPP and its leader Milton Margai were quite conservative and had concerns about Nkrumah’s strategies for a united Africa, opposition from the rival PNP, and more so from Pan-Africanist champions like I.T.A. Wallace-Johnson were powerful forces in 1958 Freetown. It would be nice to connect this design definitely with an organization like his United National People’s Party, founded in 1956.
- Eyadéma & Pompidou, 1972 - February 12, 2022
- All-African Peoples’ Conference, 1958, made in Sierra Leone - February 10, 2022
- Pagne: Peace, Dialogue, and Houphouët-Boigny c.1965 - February 10, 2022