PLAN OF ACTION

This week the focus is on the ways in which Africans sought to win independence for themselves and to create democratic forms of government in place of the authoritarian colonial regimes that they sought to reform from within or overthrow. People had to struggle in all sorts of ways to attain freedom, almost always against fierce and usually violent opposition from their colonial rulers. Think about how people throughout the continent such as Nelson Mandela, Nnamdi Azikiwe, Kwame Nkrumah and others developed their opposition to colonial rule. A complicating fact for those who sought independence in the middle of the 20th century was the international Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union with people throughout the African continent forced to take sides in a conflict that was far removed from their immediate concerns. One place in which the Cold War had a huge impact was the Congo and I want you to read carefully the documents that trace the role of the United States at the end of the Eisenhower administration.