Background
Colonial powers in Africa wanted native Africans to wait patiently for limited political concessions and better career opportunities. Due to their exclusion from the negotiations of the Treaty of Versailles, black ex-servicemen and educated urban classes became disillusioned. Because colonialism had been built on the foundation of capitalism, socialist ideas of equality and global collaboration appealed to these budding revolutionaries.
A letter from Jamaican writer and socialist Claude McKay to Leon Trotsky in 1922 refers to the experience of black soldiers:
| “ | They had been disillusioned with the European war, they kept on having frightful clashes with English and American soldiers, besides the fact the authorities treated them completely differently from the white soldiers... I was working at that time in London in a communist group. Our group provided the club of Negro soldiers with revolutionary newspapers and literature which had nothing. | ” |
Read more about this topic: Pan-African Congress
Famous quotes containing the word background:
“In the true sense one’s native land, with its background of tradition, early impressions, reminiscences and other things dear to one, is not enough to make sensitive human beings feel at home.”
—Emma Goldman (1869–1940)
“Silence is the universal refuge, the sequel to all dull discourses and all foolish acts, a balm to our every chagrin, as welcome after satiety as after disappointment; that background which the painter may not daub, be he master or bungler, and which, however awkward a figure we may have made in the foreground, remains ever our inviolable asylum, where no indignity can assail, no personality can disturb us.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“I had many problems in my conduct of the office being contrasted with President Kennedy’s conduct in the office, with my manner of dealing with things and his manner, with my accent and his accent, with my background and his background. He was a great public hero, and anything I did that someone didn’t approve of, they would always feel that President Kennedy wouldn’t have done that.”
—Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908–1973)