‘Bold, truth-telling’: learning from the rich histories of pan-African journalism
A couple of months ago, I was offered my dream job, editing the newsletter that you’re reading now. I came in clear-eyed about how I would help steer it: I wanted us to continue taking up the mantle of a long and rich tradition of diaspora journalism. Having watched the decline of a number of publications led by people of colour over the last decade, I felt the newsletter was filling a widening gap. In my first piece for The Long Wave, I delve into the past, present and potential future of diaspora and pan-African journalism.
How early diaspora journalism has been an engine for political movements
I got my start in journalism at gal-dem, a British digital magazine created by women and non-binary people of colour. We were Black-led, had a majority Black team and successfully disrupted the majority-white British journalism industry of the 2010s (even taking over an issue of Guardian’s Weekend magazine in 2018). Starting off relatively UK-focused, we increasingly turned our coverage from the British political landscape towards the global south, understanding the importance of connecting our struggles across borders.
In doing so, we began to build on a long history of Black-led diaspora journalism that connected struggles across borders. The Black Panther Party’s newspaper, Claudia Jones’s West Indian Gazette and Race Today are three publications that were in conversation with civil rights movements in the US and the UK.
But the history of the very earliest pan-African publications, particularly those arising out of Africa and the Caribbean, is less known. I spoke to historians and journalists about this unsung, early history, to find out what lessons projects such as The Long Wave might take from them today.
Talking politics across borders
Kesewa John, a lecturer in Black history at Goldsmiths, University of London, tells me that Jamaican activist Marcus Garvey made one of the most significant contributions to diaspora publishing during the early 20th-century period. Garvey launched weekly newspaper The Negro World out of New York in 1918, focusing on pan-Africanism, economic independence and anti-colonialism.
John says that The Negro World was matched in influence by The Negro Worker, which was published in multiple languages in Germany. “Both had a huge impact in Africa and the Caribbean,” she tells me – explaining that Black seafarers and post-office workers played a crucial role in distribution. They faced punishment for this under imperial law.
But this risk was outweighed by the potential gains. “These were newspapers owned and edited by Black people,” John continues. Distinguished from the mainstream press of the colony, they could take on anything and everything relevant to Black people: “Garveyism, trade unionism, socialism, universal suffrage, women’s rights, the world stage as well as applied to their local context.”
Creative print culture
Cross-diaspora conversation was also helped by the print cultures of the time. Leslie James, reader in global history at Queen Mary University of London, and author of The Moving Word: How the West African and Caribbean Press Shaped Black Political Thought, says: “Nigerian editors in the 1930s were reading and clipping from a Trinidadian or a Jamaican newspaper, and reprinting it in Nigeria, and vice versa.” This print culture of clipping and cross-publishing allowed for the global amplification of issues, including the campaign for Ethiopia’s sovereignty, which was threatened by Italy during the decade. Diaspora papers amplified and built on one another’s calls, creating innovative processes for thinking and imagining together.
Alongside publications like The Negro World, these papers made active connections between histories of enslavement and the current conditions of Black workers across the globe. Publications amplified the news of Caribbean labour revolts, which spawned new newspapers on the islands themselves. Other issues of concern to the Black diaspora, such as threats to the sovereignty of Cuba and Liberia, produced more momentum and material. In a pre-internet age, using only print materials, writers and distributors created a global platform for exploring the ongoing effects of enslavement and colonialism, in ways not dissimilar to how movements use the digital sphere today..
Many of the papers of the 1930s also intentionally pushed at the bounds of what was thought of as journalism. Some featured columns in Creole languages or published creative writing. Papers also frequently transcended the page, with people reading them out in their homes, or in public squares. Journalism didn’t only translate movements to the page, it took on a political life of its own.
A ‘golden age’ of diaspora journalism?
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Naturally, colonial powers feared these publications. John tells me that she has identified at least one murdered journalist from this era, but that many others were arrested for sedition (sometimes for the charge of inciting “racial feeling”). I get the sense these journalists understood the inherent risk in their profession, but also felt they had little to lose. John says: “These bold, truth-telling, unapologetic journalists were determined to speak freely and advocate for the majority, just a few generations after enslavement.”
It’s impossible to give an exhaustive history of what came next, but these initiatives took on different shapes in the late 20th century. Magazines began to boom, notably Drum in South Africa and Présence Africaine in France. Meanwhile, some papers grew into natural vehicles for decolonisation, with key figures from the radical Black press going on to become nationalist leaders, such as West African Pilot founder Nnamdi Azikiwe becoming the first President of Nigeria. Others were suppressed by states, such as an early Black South African paper Bantu World, which ran for more than 40 years before being raided and banned by the apartheid government in 1976. This writing wasn’t solely for pleasure, it remained a political risk.
Adapting to the rapidly formalising global journalism industry was another route. I was surprised to learn, via James’s research, that large newsbrands such as the Mirror Group (owner of the UK’s Daily Mirror) bought many of the smaller radical titles, substantially sanitising them in the years leading up to independence. The dynamics of broader anti-colonial struggles were playing out across publications, which were struggling for their own freedom.
What does the future of diaspora journalism hold?
What can we learn from these rich histories? I ask Boima Tucker, senior manager of the publication Africa Is a Country. “The most important question facing Black diaspora media is how to think internationally in a period when politics is increasingly fragmented and nationalised,” he says.
He points towards migration and policing as issues that transcend borders, as well as those that have garnered global attention through the emergence of the internet, from #EndSARS in Nigeria to #RhodesMustFall in South Africa. Tucker emphasises, however, that it’s important to build understanding across time as well as space: “There is a growing desire among audiences for deeper historical understanding and political analysis, rather than endless cycles of commentary.”
This feels aligned with what we’re trying to do with The Long Wave: building a deeper knowledge of our interconnected histories across borders, with a specific view to community repair. The spirit of creative collaboration seen in the early era of diaspora publishing feels crucial – whether that means creating more space for our readers, or experimenting with new ways of communicating and connecting.
Tucker echoes the importance of creating spaces for generative discussion and imagination. It’s not dissimilar to the culture of clipping and building on one another’s arguments. “The challenge for Black diaspora media is not simply to represent Black life,” he tells me, “but to create spaces where people can collectively make sense of the world they inhabit, and imagine alternatives to it.”
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Did you know about these histories of diaspora journalism? What could we take from them? Share your thoughts by replying to this, or emailing us at thelongwave@theguardian.com and we may include your response in a future issue.
