“FORWARD TO the 69th AFRICAN LIBERATION DAY! A Call for Mass, Coordinated, Anti-Imperialist Action in the 6 Regions of Africa and its Diaspora, and in the World in 2027”: An Interview with Bob Brown
This interview was conducted between AISC member Layla Brown and the dedicated laborer, student, and combatant Bob Brown on June 26, 2026.
Layla Brown (LB): Good afternoon and thank you for agreeing to be interviewed for the Anti-Imperialist Scholars Collective. We are organizing a special issue of our online magazine, The Pen and Machete, on African Liberation and Pan-Africanism. As a lifelong fighter in the struggle for Pan-Africanism and African Liberation, I wanted to get your perspective on the history of African Liberation Day and its importance for those of us who identify as Pan-Africanists. I would like to begin by asking you to tell us: What is African Liberation Day? Why do you and the A-APRP (historically) and the A-APRP (GC) (presently) commemorate it, and why is it important to institutionalize the commemoration of African Liberation Day?
Bob Brown (BB): We thank you for the invitation and the opportunity to share some of the history and the work we are doing to build Pan-Africanism and to institutionalize African Liberation Day. For over 4,000 years, and continuing today, Africa was not liberated, was not free. It was invaded, and occupied, colonized and balkanized, trafficked and enslaved, exploited and oppressed, pillaged and despoiled. From Carthage, which was enslaved in 2000 BC to Libya and the Sahel States, which are struggling to be liberated from 00 years of slavery and colonization today; From the Greeco-Roman Wars in 400 BC to the Wars in the Sudan, Congo, and the Sahel today; From the birth of the Christian Church in 62 AD, the dispersion of Christianity worldwide from 1,000 to 2026, and the recent Apology of Pope Leo 14 for the Vatican's role in the trafficking in and the enslavement of African People; From 632 AD with the founding of Islam, to the dispersion of Islam worldwide by the Caliphates, the founding of the Ottoman Empire in 1299, including Ottoman Palestine, and its consolidation and spread to 1922, the end of WW II. From 1441 and 1492, with the beginning of the Trans-Atlantic Traffic in and enslavement of African People.
African Liberation Day was formerly known as Africa Freedom Day from 1958 to 1963; as African Liberation Day from 1963 to 2002; and as Africa Day from 2002 to 2026. It was founded by Osagefyo Kwame Nkrumah, the first President of Ghana, on April 15, 1958, at the occasion of the 1st Conference of Independent States which was held in Accra, Ghana.
This Conference was attended by eight "independent" African states: Ghana, Ethiopia, Egypt, Liberia, Libya, Morocco, and Tunisia. Five of these states are in North Africa. Representatives of the National Liberation Front of Algeria and the Union of Cameroonian People also attended.
April 15th was declared "Africa Freedom Day," "to mark each year the onward progress of the liberation movement, and to mobilize the determination of the people of Africa to free themselves from foreign domination and exploitation."
In 1902, [Theodore] Herzl, representing the World Zionist Movement, sent a Letter to Cecil Rhodes, who was a then leader of the apartheid Movement. The Zionist Movement in South Africa was founded in the 1880s. In 1902, Herzl, representing the World Zionist Movement, sent a letter to Cecil Rhodes in 1902, requesting an alliance between Zionism and apartheid. By WWII, the discovery and consolidation of the diamond and gold in southern Africa had made the Zionist Movement there the richest and most powerful in the World. For 48 years, the Zionist Movement searched in Africa and the Americas for land on which to found and consolidate a Jewish homeland; Egypt, Uganda, Argentina, etc.
In 1948, Palestine Day was founded by the Organization of Arab States on May 15, 1948, a decade earlier, in the wake of the UN's illegal and immoral decision to found the Zionist State of Israel. The Arab-Israeli war of May 15, 1948, resulted in the military occupation and division of the Middle East, under Israeli direction. For 48 years, the World Zionist Movement conspired with the Euro-American forces who financed and organized colonialism and imperialism. May 15, 1948, the day of the so-called independence of Israel, which resulted in mass genocide and the dispersion of 750,000 people, was declared Palestine Day (Nakba) Day.
In 1959, President Tubman of Liberia hosted President Sekou Toure of Guinea, and Prime Minister Kwame Nkrumah at the First West African Summit Conference in Sanniquellie, Liberia. They pledged to form a Community of Independent States. Emperor Haile Sellessie of Ethiopia inherited and implemented that pledge. In 1963, 32 independent African states met on May 1st under the leadership of Emperor Haile Sellassie. This was the first meeting of Independent States in Africa since the Berlin Conference of 1884-1885. The 33 Heads of State met in Addis Ababa, founded the Organization of African Unity, changed the name to African Liberation Day, and the date to May 25th.
Miriam Makeba was invited by Emperor Selassie to perform before 2,000 guests at the official Africa Freedom Day dinner. She performed in 1964 at the OAU Summit in Cairo, and again in 1965, at the OAU Summit in Accra. Malcolm X and a host of Liberation Movement leaders in Africa were invited by President Nasser to attend the Cairo Summit as Guests. We do not know if Makeba met Malcolm or the other leaders while they were in Egypt.
President Nasser also invited Ahmed Shukeiri, the Chair of the Palestine Liberation Organization, to attend the Cairo Summit. Malcolm traveled to Khan Younis refugee camp in Gaza on September 5 and 15, 1964. Gaza was then controlled by Egypt. On September 17, 1964, he wrote an essay titled Zionist Logic for the Egyptian Gazette. These visits and article helped to develop relationships between the progressive forces in Africa and its Diaspora, and in Palestine.
Thirty-five years later, on September 9, 1999, 55 Heads of State signed the Sirte Declaration in Libya, under the leadership of Muammar Gaddafi. It called for the establishment of the African Union. The 32-member Organization of African Unity (OAU) was officially disbanded and replaced by the African Union (AU) on July 9, 2002, in Durban, South Africa. Its most important decisions have been made at the 38 Annual Summits that have been held since 2002.
African Liberation Day (which is formally called Africa Day) is a mass, anti-imperialist, anti-colonialist, anti-racist, anti-Zionist and anti-apartheid event and movement that mobilizes and involves thousands of People in hundreds of cities worldwide. The All-African People's Revolutionary Party (GC) and Pan-African Roots [Bob’s pen name] do not believe that Africa and its Diaspora are liberated; we do not believe that they are free. Therefore, we have not accepted the name change. We believe that liberation is material and immaterial, and that it can be quantified and objectively measured.
We pray that the Sahel States, and that all of the anti-imperialist and revolutionary forces in the 6 Regions of Africa and its Diaspora, and in the corresponding Regions and Diasporas of the Palestinian, Arab, and Muslim Nation, and Socialist World will organize the largest and most militant African Liberation Day and Palestine (Nakba) Day the world has ever seen in 2027.
We do not call for another Conference by whatever number or in whatever form. It is perhaps true, that a bad organization is better than none at all, but, dialectically speaking, NO AFRICOM and NO NATO, would be better than the mass confusion and corruption, the mass murder and genocide we face today.
Honestly, we are tired of bullshit meetings, and podcasts for the sake of podcasts. We genuinely believe that the competition, chaos and confusion, the class struggle that currently exists in the African Revolution worldwide, will be sorted out only through an intensification and increase in revolutionary political work, study, and struggle. We believe that revolutionary, political organization and mobilization decides everything.
In the meantime, the All-African People's Revolutionary Party (GC), and our genuine Allies, will continue to do what we have done, successfully, we believe, since 1976; organize and mobilize ALD in Washington, DC as best we can. We will continue to struggle to build our party and help build our allies, not another organization masquerading as a coalition, not another fake conference.
LB: Thank you for that extensive and detailed history. Some forces choose to begin the history of African Liberation Day in 1963 with the founding of the OAU. Why does the A-APRP (GC) recognize the 1958 Africa Freedom Day, which took place in Accra, Ghana, as the origin point of African Liberation Day commemorations across the African Diaspora, and can you describe the issues that led to the name change to African Liberation Day?
BB: The Berlin Conference, a meeting of Representatives of 14 slave- holding and slave-trafficking empires, met under the leadership of Otto von Bismarck, the first chancellor of Germany, and Leopold II of Belgium, in 1884-1885. The 14 Empires included: Germany, Austria- Hungary, Belgium, Spain, Denmark, the United States, France, the United Kingdom, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Russia, Sweden-Norway, and the Ottoman Empire.
Article 35 of the General Act of Berlin, the subsequent treaty, formalized the "Scramble for Africa," which had been underway for more than 400 years. It formally abolished the slave trade and established the Principle of Effective Occupation, which legalized colonialism, and the occupation and balkanization of Africa. By 1914, World War 1, 90%of Africa was colonized. Arguably, Ethiopia and Liberia were the only independent countries. Ethiopia was occupied by WWII.
In 1958, only 8 countries in Africa were "independent," 5 of them in Northern Africa. Ghana was the first country South of the Sahara to become independent under the leadership of Kwame Nkrumah. Guinea, under the leadership of Sekou Toure in 1958, became the second county south of the Sahara to become independent. The whole world, especially the WWII Baby Boomers, was watching, and we took sides. We continue to take sides today, as Africa, from Libya to South Africa are recolonized.
LB: You already spoke to the history of Nakba Day in your first response, but could you talk more about why the A-APRP (GC) commemorates African Liberation Day in conjunction with Palestine (Nakba) Day? Where does that come from?
BB: In 1896, Theodore Herzl published Der Judenstaat, and launched the Zionist Movement, worldwide. In 1897, he convened the First Zionist Congress in Basel, Switzerland, and was elected President of the Zionist Organization. He immediately appealed to Kaiser Wilhelm II of the German Empire and Sultan Abdul Hamid II of the Ottoman Empire for support in building a Jewish State.
Until WWI, Palestine was occupied by the Ottoman Empire. The English Zionist Federation, the local branch of the World Zionist Organization, was established in 1897. The Zionist Movement in South Africa was founded in 1898. In 1902, Herzl wrote a letter to Cecil Rhodes appealing for support. By World War II, in the wake of the consolidation of its control over the diamond and gold industry in South Africa, the Zionist movement in South Africa, under the leadership of Litvak Jews, was the richest and most powerful branch in the world.
With the defeat of the German and Ottoman Empires in WWI, Palestine became a League of Nations’ Mandate. The German colonies in Southern and Western Africa also became League Mandates. W.E.B. DuBois and the NAACP, and Marcus Garvey and the UNIA submitted petitions to the League of Nations regarding the African and Palestinian Mandates. This was a major issue at the 1919 Pan-African Conference in Paris. The Balfour Declaration of 1917 consolidated British and French control over Palestine, Syria, and Lebanon.
This issue evolved into the Arab-Israeli War of 1948, and the so-called independence of Israel. How can a "bandit regime," morally and ethically, evolve into an independent and progressive state? Israel hijacked and perverted the world's legitimate outrage over the Holocaust and the murder of 6 million Jews by the Nazi regime. The mass murder and Genocide in Gaza, Lebanon, and Iran today are the inevitable outcome of this perversion.
Malcolm's contact with the Palestinians in Gaza and Cairo in 1964. Miriam Makeba's support for Egypt at the UN and at the Greek Theater in LA during the Israeli War against Egypt in 1967; SNCC's and the BPP's support for the PLO in the 1970s, and the Black Lives Movement's support for Gaza were predicted, and on time.
LB: Could you tell us more about the history of African Liberation Day in the United States, and your role in helping to organize it over the past five decades?
BB: The narrative that ALD 1972 in Washington, DC was the first such manifestation in the United States is a lie. According to E. Essien-Udom, Malcolm X and the Nation of Islam organized 10,000 People to participate in an African Freedom Day in New York in 1958. According to George Houser, Tom Mboya spoke to 2,000 People at an ALD event at Carnegie Hall, organized by the American Committee and the American Federation of Labor (AFL-CIO) in New York in 1959.
Mboya then made over 200 speeches on the platforms of labor imperialism over the next few months, across the United States. He was elected, with the support of Kwame Nkrumah, to head the 1st Conference of liberation movements in Accra in 1959. He was unelected, with the help of Ishmael Toure in 1961, because of his relationship to US imperialism, the US Peace Corps, and labor imperialism.
Sister Christine Johnson, first female principal of the Nation of Islam's School, and Ishmael Flory of the Communist Party of Illinois organized Africa Freedom Day in Chicago in 1959. Johnny Johnson of Ebony Magazine and other Black millionaires supported AFD 1959 in Chicago. Mayor Daley gave Kwame Nkrumah the keys to the City, and the Democratic Party stole the Black vote for almost eight decades.
Since May 1972 the A-APRP intensified their efforts to recruit and train new Pan-African cadre, to politically educate the masses with heavy emphasis on African students. In 1976 the A-APRP felt strong enough ideologically, politically and organizationally to ‘take ALD back, no forward to Africa where it belonged’. On 10 February 1976 that Party met and decided that the situation in the U.S. demanded that a political and ideological offensive be launched in order to solidify a revolutionary Pan-Africanist political climate, an intensification of the class struggle raging inside Africa and the world. This was done by forcing the debate over support to the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola against the National Union for Total Independence of Angola et al and the A-APRP’s organization of ALD in 1975 in Washington, D.C.
Almost every organization of the now-defunct African Liberation Day Support Committee, along with harassment from the FBI/CIA, attacked the A-APRP. Yet, by itself, the A-APRP held ALD in Washington, D.C. with 15,000 participants. The smaller turnout was the result of the purpose and propaganda used by the A-APRP. We called on participants to show their commitment to the African Revolution on a daily basis by joining the A-APRP or any other organization working to advance the People’s noble cause. No liberals were allowed to speak. The Palestine Liberation Organization was invited and given an honorary status. The American Indian Movement received the pledges of the participants to increase their efforts to help them regain their land. The Irish received thundering applause for their 800-year-old just struggle against British imperialism.
Imperialism, capitalism, neo-colonialism, zionism and apartheid were denounced, and the A-APRP made it crystal clear that the only solution to the problem faced by Africans worldwide was Pan-Africanism-the total liberation and unification of Africa under scientific socialism. The A-APRP eliminated a host of opportunists and reactionary rubbish! The African Liberation Day Support Committee, certain of the A-APRP's failure, held no ALDs. But they were surprised when several thousand people marched under the banner of the A-APRP for ALD 1976 in Washington, D.C. We took ALD back in 1976 never to retreat or to relinquish control of it again. We intensified our struggle to rebuild ALD as a permanent, revolutionary, mass Pan-African institution with its own revolutionary independence, integrity and vitality. We also re-doubled our efforts to build the A-APRP. And we have been organizing ALD in Washington, D.C. and elsewhere since 1976 in spite of all manner of treachery, confusion, and attempted co-option from the right and the so-called left.
We have broadened our work both quantitatively and qualitatively. The A-APRP now sponsors ALD in countries as far part as Africa, Virgin Islands, U.S. and England. Other revolutionary and progressive organizations hold African Liberation Day throughout the African world, socialist countries, and other progressive organizations ensure worldwide activities for ALD.
LB: Finally, one of the goals of the A-APRP and the A-APRP-GC has been to institutionalize the practice of commemorating African Liberation Day. It seems, however, that there is a growing impulse by imperial forces to co-opt the commemoration of African Liberation Day. What is your take on institutions like the United Nations and AFRICOM's attempts to "celebrate African Liberation Day?"
BB: We have struggled for more than 100 years to squeeze what little could be squeezed from the League of Nations. Malcolm told US over 60 years ago to take our case to the United Nations. We continue to try. We have seen and support the victories that the South African government have won at the ICC and ICJ in the Hague.
We are not pacifists, nor mechanically committed to non-violence. We believe in revolutionary self-defense, by any means necessary, but not all means, especially those that are immoral and unjust. We do not believe that corruption or chaos or confusion should be defended
No AFRICOM or NATO.
Bob Brown has been active in the student and youth; human and civil rights; African liberation, Black Power and Pan-African; socialist; anti-war and anti-draft; anti-zionist and anti-repression movements for 65 years. He has done this work as a member of the Chicago Chapter of the Congress of Racial Equality (1963-1968); director of the Midwest Office of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (1967-1968); co-founder of the Illinois Chapter of the Black Panther Party (1968-1969); National Organizer and Logistics Coordinator for the Million Man March (1995) and a founding central committee member of the All-African People’s Revolutionary Party (1972-present). This expansive, historically illuminating interview examines the establishment and formation of African Liberation Day (ALD), its connection with the founding of the OAU and Nakba Day, the central role of the All-African People’s Revolutionary Party in its founding, and the continued relevance of ALD to anti-imperialist struggle today.
Layla Brown is a member of AISC.