Ghana's founder and first President Kwame Nkrumah (left) and Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie (centre) at the formation of the Organization of African Unity (OAU) in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia on May 25, 1963. The formation of the OAU, now the African Union (AU), is celebrated as Africa Day.
Kim Heller
Africa Day was never intended to be purely ceremonial. Africa Day was born in the blaze of revolutionary battles against colonial occupation and imperial plunder. It arose from a vision of a post-independent Africa grounded in continental development, dignity, and sovereignty.
Celebrated annually on May 25, Africa Day commemorates the formation of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) in 1963, the predecessor of the African Union. It was envisaged that the OAU would serve as a potent post-independence instrument of rejuvenation after a centuries-long period of colonial extraction and fracture.
Six decades later, this vision remains undone.
