George Padmore and Decolonization from Below: Pan-Africanism, the Cold War, and the End of Empire

285 Pages·2015·1.17 MB·English

by  Leslie James (auth.)

Cambridge Imperial and Post-Colonial Studies Series
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BRITAIN’S IMPERIAL CENTURY, 1815–1914: A STUDY OF EMPIRE AND EXPANSION
Third Edition
Iftekhar Iqbal
THE BENGAL DELTA
Ecology, State and Social Change, 1843–1943
Leslie James
GEORGE PADMORE AND DECOLONIZATION FROM BELOW
Pan-Africanism, the Cold War, and the End of Empire
Robin Jeffrey
POLITICS, WOMEN AND WELL-BEING
How Kerala Became a ‘Model’
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HEADHUNTING AND COLONIALISM
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LAW, DISORDER AND THE COLONIAL STATE
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ATLANTIC PORTS AND THE FIRST GLOBALISATION C. 1850–1930
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George Padmore and
Decolonization from Below
Pan-Africanism, the Cold War, and the
End of Empire
Leslie James
Leverhulme Early Career Fellow, University of Birmingham, UK
© Leslie James 2015
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2015 978-1-137-35201-9
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First published 2015 by
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ISBN 978-1-349-46906-2 ISBN 978-1-137-35202-6 (eBook)
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A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
James, Leslie, 1980–
George Padmore and decolonization from below : pan-Africanism,
the Cold War, and the end of empire / Leslie James, Lecturer in World History,
University of Cambridge, UK.
pages cm—(Cambridge imperial and post-colonial studies series)
Includes bibliographical references.
1. Padmore, George, 1902–1959. 2. Nationalism—Africa—History—
20th century. 3. Decolonization—Africa—History—20th century.
4. Pan-Africanism—History—20th century. 5. Africa—History—Autonomy
and independence movements. 6. African diaspora. I. Title.
DT30.J35 2014
320.54096—dc23 2014025887
Typeset by MPS Limited, Chennai, India.
Contents
List of Figures vi
Acknowledgements vii
Introduction: The Artful Anti-colonialist 1
1 Origins: ‘The Most Completely Political Negro’ 15
2 Putting Empire in Black and White 35
3 ‘The Long, Long Night is Over’: A War of Opportunity? 47
4 Writing Anti-imperial Solidarity from London 69
5 The Psychological Moment 96
6 A Buttress for the ‘Beacon Light’ 120
7 Nation, Diaspora, and Modernity 143
8 Ghana, Death, and the Afterlife 164
Conclusion: ‘The Soliloquy of Africa’ 191
Notes 201
Bibliography 247
Index 270
v
List of Figures
3.1 George Padmore in front of fireplace, date unknown 62
6.1 George Padmore and Kwame Nkrumah in Ghana,
date unknown 135
6.2 George Padmore at Convention People’s Party rally in
Togoland, date unknown 136
8.1 Padmore and Dzenkle Dzewu at rally in Ashanti,
date unknown 175
8.2 The King of Kumawu, Padmore, and Dzenkle Dzewu at
Kumawu, date unknown 181
8.3 Dorothy Padmore and Ghana delegation at funeral,
Golders Green Crematorium, London, September 1959 185
8.4 Chief of Denu, Togoland, Padmore, and Dzenkle Dzewu,
date unknown 188
vi
Acknowledgements
The research for this book was conducted in archives in Trinidad,
the United States, the United Kingdom, Ghana, Russia, and France.
I would like to thank the care and consideration of the archivists at
each of the archives I visited. Each one was helpful and, without excep-
tion, went beyond normal expectations to help me find what I needed.
For permission to print photographs held in their collections, I wish
to thank the George Padmore Library, Accra, as well as the University
of Massachusetts W. E. B. Du Bois Library. For permission to reproduce
quotations from C. L. R. James’ Beyond a Boundary, I wish to thank
Curtis Brown Group Ltd, on behalf of the Estate of C. L. R. James, as well
as Random House Publishers, UK. I also wish to thank the wonderful
Kearon Roy Taylor for creating the cover art.
Across the disparate locations of my research for this manuscript,
many people provided essential support in navigating archives, locales,
and languages. I could not have undertaken these research trips with-
out financial grants from: the University of London Central Research
Fund, the Royal Historical Society, and the LSE International History
Department. I want to thank Carol Polsgrove for her early advice on
archives and sources for a study of Padmore, which so quickly set me
on my way. On my trip to Ghana, Kwame Essein provided invaluable
advice and connections, including taking me to the George Padmore
Primary School in Tema where he received his own earliest education.
I want to thank Sylvia Francois, who opened her home to me while
in Ghana and provided every kind of support. Staying with Sylvia
resulted in a fortuitous placement down the road from the Convention
People’s Party office, and I want to thank the staff there for locating
those who knew George Padmore, and Mr Kwaku Amoah for taking the
time to speak with me. I also want to thank Professor Kofi Baku at the
University of Ghana for offering time and support to connect me with
relevant people and archival sources. Following this trip, I also benefited
immensely from the support of Jeffrey Ahlman, whose excellent work
on Ghana during the Nkrumah years has informed my own work enor-
mously and who has proved a great colleague. Frank Gerits was also
very generous in sharing documents from his own work in the George
Padmore Library. Mr K. B. Asante graciously sat with me for more hours
than was necessary, filling in pieces of information and providing a
vii
viii Acknowledgements
picture of Padmore’s work and style in the last years of his life in Ghana.
While in Trinidad, Dr Jerome Teelucksingh was an immense support in
helping me to navigate archival locations and in sharing with me his
own research on Padmore. In Moscow, Professor Vladimir Shubin was
a great support for my research, and I want to thank him and everyone
at the Centre for African Studies for their assistance. In particular, Mary
Shemyakina went above and beyond in helping me to secure housing,
introducing me to the Comintern archivists, and translating docu-
ments. She was incredible. I am grateful to Sue Onslow for connecting
me to the Centre in the first place, and also to Alessandro Iandolo for
sharing documents and translations from archives in Moscow I was
unable to visit. The kind of collegial support that all of these people
provided is always impressive.
I also owe a debt to the work of Marika Sherwood and Hakim Adi,
who both shared their own research with me. Marika opened up her
home to me, her decades of archival research, interviews, and contacts
so that I could complete this project. And I thank her for permission to
cite numerous documents and transcripts in her possession. In bring-
ing Padmore and the world he inhabited to life, this project has also
benefited from those who gave generously of their time to speak with
me personally. In particular I want to thank Dorothy Pizer’s niece,
Beatrice Pizer, for sharing her family’s history and memories with me.
I also want to thank Selma James for carefully and patiently working
with me in the final stages of the manuscript to try to better under-
stand the commitments that drove George Padmore and the kind of
person he was.
Joanna Lewis has proved to be an unswerving guide and support
throughout the process of writing the book. Her patience and judge-
ment developed my approach to research and writing in the best pos-
sible ways. I also want to acknowledge the support of everyone in the
LSE International History Department faculty, and to LSE IDEAS for
providing a valuable fellowship. Thank you to Maurice Pinto for his
generous support in the writing of this book. My great thanks also goes
to Odd Arne Westad for his comments and guidance as I worked on this
manuscript.
Many people have taken the time to sit and chat with me, or pro-
vide feedback in seminars and workshops, all of which nurtured
the ideas for this manuscript. I want to thank those who attended
presentations and asked important questions at the University of
Birmingham’s African newspaper cultures conference; the Caribbean
Studies Seminar at the Institute of the Americas University of London
Acknowledgements ix
and especially Kate Quinn for her invitation and interest in my work;
the LSE’s Cold War History seminar and Postgraduate seminar series;
the Imperial and World History seminar at the Institute for Historical
Research; and the University of Oxford’s Race and Resistance seminar.
As I wrote up the manuscript, the wonderful group of people involved
in the Race and Resistance network in Oxford provided much needed
encouragement, including Stephen Tuck, Elleke Boehmer, Ruth Bush,
Justine McConnell, Jarad Zimbler, Imaobong Umoren, and Tamara
Moellenberg. Especially in the last stages of writing, I want to thank
the intellectual support of all those involved in the remarkable World
History Seminar at the University of Cambridge, from which I have ben-
efited immensely. Special thanks to Sujit Sivasundarum, Emma Hunter,
and Ruth Watson for reading my work at particular times, and in par-
ticular to Rachel Leow and Elisabeth Leake for last-minute comments
on chapters. Melanie Newton, Jordan Goodman, John Lonsdale, Philip
Murphy, Leo Zelig, and Anthony Bogues all spoke with me at critical
moments and helped spur my thinking. I am grateful to Ato Quayson
for sharing his wisdom, suggesting readings and lines of enquiry. I am
also grateful to Antonela Arhin for her support while at the Centre for
Diaspora and Transnational Studies, University of Toronto. I have ben-
efited immensely from a community of scholars in England who have
critically read drafts of my work, sat with me on panels at conferences,
and challenged my ideas about Padmore and the world in which he
worked in 1930s and 1940s Britain. Thank you to Hakim Adi, Christian
Hogsbjerg, and Daniel Whittall. For the kind of intellectual and political
friendship, nurtured through countless conversations, that have fur-
nished me with inspiration throughout the years of writing this book,
I want to thank Kheya Bag, Honor Brabazon, Anna Feigenbaum, Artemy
Kalinovsky, Sarah Keenan, Rui Lopes, Blair Ogden, David Shulman,
Stephanie Silverman, and Vladimir Unkovski-Korica. I want to thank
Palgrave’s anonymous reviewers of this manuscript and the series edi-
tors. Richard Drayton has provided immensely valuable feedback along
the way, and has helped both to widen the scope of my understanding
of empire and to listen for the subtle inflections of both Caribbean
and British traditions in Padmore’s work. Susan Pennybacker’s careful
attention to the overall project and to earlier drafts of work has been
instrumental, particularly in sharpening my arguments and in broaden-
ing my historiographical scope. All of the people mentioned here have
offered their expertise in aid of making this book better. Its imperfec-
tions, errors, and miscalculations are the result of my own inability to
take it all in.