First Pan-African Conference

[1] Organized primarily by the Trinidadian barrister Henry Sylvester Williams,[2] the conference took place in Westminster Town Hall (now Caxton Hall)[3] and was attended by 37 delegates and about 10 other participants and observers[4][5] from Africa, the West Indies, the US and the UK, including Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (the youngest delegate),[6] John Alcindor, Benito Sylvain, Dadabhai Naoroji, John Archer, Henry Francis Downing, Anna H. Jones, Anna Julia Cooper, and W. E. B.

Booker T. Washington, who had been travelling in the UK in the summer of 1899, wrote in a letter to African-American newspapers: "In connection with the assembling of so many Negroes in London from different parts of the world, a very important movement has just been put upon foot.

He may be addressed, Common Room, Grey's (sic) Inn, London, W.C."[13]When the First Pan-African Conference opened on Monday, 23 July 1900, in London's Westminster Town Hall, Bishop Alexander Walters in his opening address, "The Trials and Tribulations of the Coloured Race in America", noted that "for the first time in history black people had gathered from all parts of the globe to discuss and improve the condition of their race, to assert their rights and organize so that they might take an equal place among nations.

Among the papers delivered were: "Conditions Favouring a High Standard of African Humanity" (C. W. French of St. Kitts), "The Preservation of Racial Equality" (Anna H. Jones, from Kansas City, Missouri), "The Necessary Concord to be Established between Native Races and European Colonists" (Benito Sylvain,[15] Haitian aide-de-camp to the Ethiopian emperor), "The Negro Problem in America" (Anna J. Cooper, from Washington), "The Progress of our People" (John E. Quinlan of St. Lucia) and "Africa, the Sphinx of History, in the Light of Unsolved Problems" (D. E. Tobias from the USA).

[16] Other topics included Richard Phipps' complaint of discrimination against black people in the Trinidadian civil service and an attack by William Meyer, a medical student at Edinburgh University, on pseudo-scientific racism.

In September, the delegates petitioned Queen Victoria through the British government to look into the treatment of Africans in South Africa and Rhodesia, including specified acts of injustice perpetrated by whites there, namely:The response eventually received by Sylvester Williams on 17 January 1901 stated: "Sir.

Mr. Chamberlain accordingly desires to assure the members of the Pan-African Conference that, it settling the lines on which the administration of the conquered territories is to be conducted, Her Majesty's Government will not overlook the interests and welfare of the native races.

[27] The conference was reported in major British newspapers, including The Times[1][28] and the Westminster Gazette,[21] which commented that it "marks the initiation of a remarkable movement in history: the negro is at last awake to the potentialities of his future" and quoted Williams as saying: "Our object now is to secure throughout the world the same facilities and privileges for the black as the white man enjoys.

"[29] Du Bois recorded in his report, "On Monday, the 23d of July, the conference was invited to a five o'clock tea given by the Reform Cobden Club of London in honor of the delegates, at its headquarters in the St. Ermin Hotel, one of the most elegant in the city.

Miss Catherine Impey, of London, said she was glad to come in contact with the class of Negroes that composed the Pan-African Conference, and wished that the best and most cultured would visit England and meet her citizens of noble birth, that the adverse opinion which had been created against them in some quarters of late by their enemies might be changed.