Year of Africa - United Nations

United Nations

In October, Ghanaian president Kwame Nkrumah delivered an address to the United Nations in which he discussed Africa's role in the world and the future role of the world in Africa. Nkrumah asserted Africa's new power, saying it did not wish revenge on its European colonizers, but would insist on freedom:

One cardinal fact of our time is the momentous impact of Africa’s awakening upon the modern world. The flowing tide of African nationalism sweeps everything before it and constitutes a challenge to the colonial powers to make a just restitution for the years of injustice and crime committed against our continent.
But Africa does not seek vengeance. It is against her very nature to harbor malice. Over two million of our people cry out with one voice of tremendous power. And what do they say? We do not ask for death for our oppressors; we do not pronounce wishes of ill-fate for our slave-masters; we make an assertion of a just and positive demand; our voice booms across the oceans and mountains, over the hills and valleys, in the desert places and through the vast expanse of mankind’s inhabitations, and it calls out for the freedom of Africa. Africa wants her freedom. Africa must be free. It is a simple call, but it’s also a signal lighting a red warning to those who would tend to ignore it.

Nkrumah called for an end to white supremacy, particularly in South Africa. In an introduction the printed text of the speech, W.E.B. Du Bois writes "...there can be no doubt that Kwame Nkrumah is the Voice of Africa. That is, that more nearly than any other living man he expresses the thought and ideals of the dark continent and that this continent is stepping to the forefront in world affairs."

On 14 December 1960, the UN General Assembly approved the Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples. This statement affirms that "all peoples have the right to self-determination", and that rule by outside powers constitutes is a violation of human rights. The statement passed with no votes against. The United States and seven other colonial powers abstained; Zelma George, an African American in the US delegation, stood to signify her support of the Declaration.