George Padmore [1902-1959] – the famous Pan-Africanist and anti-colonial activist – Trinidad | USA | Russia | Germany | France | Great Britain | Ghana
Life stories
Hakim Adi, 2024
For three important years during the 1930s Hamburg was the headquarters of the International Trade Union Committee of Negro Workers (ITUCNW) and its secretary George Padmore, who was to become one of the most famous anti-colonial activists of the period and later one of the most famous Pan-Africanists. Hamburg was not only the headquarters of the ITUCNW but also the location for the first International Conference of Negro Workers, an almost forgotten but extremely important Pan-African event, held in the city in 1930, and organized under the auspices of the of the Red International of Labour Unions (RILU), the trade union organization of the Communist International often referred to as the Profintern.
This Hamburg was not only the home of Ernst Thälmann, the leader of the German Communist Party, but also of an organization that sought to encourage the mobilization of workers throughout Africa and its diaspora for liberation and an end to colonial rule, racism and the imperialist system of states.
Padmore was born in Trinidad but his political activities which began in the United States, also took him to Moscow, Paris, London and Manchester, and he spent the end of his life in Accra, Ghana.
Contact:
References:
Adi, Hakim: Pan-Africanism and Communism: The Communist International, Africa and the Diaspora, 1919-1939, 2013.
Adi, Hakim: Pan-Africanism: A History, 2018.
Baptiste, Fitzroy and Lewis, Rupert (eds.): George Padmore: Pan-African Revolutionary, 2009.
Hooker, James: Black Revolutionary: George Padmore’s path from Communism to Pan-Africanism, 1967.
James, Leslie: George Padmore and Decolonization from Below: Pan-Africanism, the Cold War and the End of Empire, 2015.
Weiss, Holger: A Global Radical Waterfront: The International Propaganda Committee of Transport Workers and the International of Seamen and Harbour Workers, 1921-1937, 2021.
Campell, Susan: Indroduction to The Negro Worker - A Comintern Publication of 1928-37
-
This article was written as part of the project ‘Digital mapping of Hamburg's colonial history’. The project is a co-operation between the Hamburg Historical Museums Foundation, the working group HAMBURG POSTKOLONIAL and the Berlin joint project ‘Decolonial Culture of Remembrance in the City’. It is funded by the Hamburg Ministry of Culture and Media and the German Federal Cultural Foundation.
Coordination and editing: Anke Schwarzer, 2024
Stationen
School and first professional steps as a reporter
Padmore at Howard University
At the Communist University of the Toilers of the East (KUTV)
First International Conference of Negro Workers in 1930
World Congress of Seamen in 1932
Chez Padmore in Altona
Union des Travailleurs Negre
Pan-africanist activities in London
Pan-African Congress in 1945