Henry Sylvester Williams: The Father of Pan-Africanism

Henry Sylvester Williams was a Trinidadian lawyer, writer, and activist widely regarded as a founding figure in organized Pan-Africanism, and is therefore known as the Father of Pan-Africanism. He is often credited with coining, or helping to popularise, the term “Pan-African,” and was the principal organizer of the First Pan-African Conference, held at Westminster Town Hall in London in July 1900. In 1903, he traveled to South Africa to practice as a barrister and became the first Black man to be called to the bar in the Cape Colony.

Williams’s precise birth details remain disputed. Many accounts place his birth in Trinidad in 1869, while historian Marika Sherwood has argued that he was born in Barbados in 1867. He was one of five children. After attending school in Trinidad, he qualified as a primary-school teacher as a teenager and became a head teacher soon afterwards.

In 1891, Williams traveled to New York City, where he worked in several jobs for about two years. In 1893, he entered Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, to study law, but did not complete the degree. His time in Nova Scotia is incompletely documented. Although some accounts name him as a co-founder of the Coloured Hockey League of the Maritimes, historians have noted that conclusive archival evidence for his role has not been found.

In 1896, Williams moved to England and settled in London. He enrolled at King’s College London to continue legal studies and later read for the Bar at Gray’s Inn. He supported himself through lecturing, including work for the Church of England Temperance Society, which took him throughout Britain and Ireland. He spoke frequently on Trinidad and colonial rule, condemning Crown Colony government as “a heartless system … a synonym for racial contempt.”

Williams also led a deputation of Trinidadians to meet Members of Parliament and is widely described as the first person of African descent to speak in the House of Commons. He wrote to newspapers and journals on matters concerning African and diasporic peoples. During this period, he became close to Agnes Powell, a secretary with the Temperance Society; they later married and had children.

In 1897, Williams and the South African activist Alice Kinloch co-founded the African Association. It aimed to publicize injustices affecting African peoples and people of African descent and to promote and protect their interests within the British Empire and beyond.

To foster international solidarity among African peoples and the wider diaspora, Williams convened the First Pan-African Conference in London from 23 to 25 July 1900. He served as general secretary. The meeting took place at Westminster Town Hall—now known as Caxton Hall—and brought together 37 delegates and approximately 10 other participants and observers from Africa, the Caribbean, the United States and Britain. Bishop Alexander Walters, a leader of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church and president of the National Afro-American Council, chaired the conference.

The conference addressed racial discrimination, colonial oppression, civil and political rights, and the status of African peoples under European imperialism. It called upon colonials to recognize the rights of indigenous peoples and affirmed the importance of racial dignity and collective political action. The gathering helped spread the language of Pan-Africanism and established the Pan-African Association, with Williams as honorary secretary.

After the conference, Williams travelled to Jamaica, Trinidad and the United States in an effort to establish branches of the Pan-African Association. On returning to London, he launched The Pan-African in 1901. The monthly journal aimed to circulate information “concerning the African and his descendants in the British Empire” and to serve as “the mouthpiece of the millions of Africans and their descendants.” It survived for only a few issues, and Williams was unable to organise a second conference, in part because of financial constraints.

In 1903, Williams went to South Africa, where he practiced law in Cape Town and advocated for African interests amid European political domination. He encountered entrenched racism and major obstacles to legal practice, and returned to London in 1905. He then entered municipal politics and, in 1906, was elected to St Marylebone Borough Council as a Progressive aligned with the Liberal Party. He is recognized as the first Black councilor in St Marylebone and Westminster, and as one of the first Black people elected to public office in Britain.

Williams later returned to Trinidad, where he practiced law, lectured on Africa, and was associated with the Working Men’s Association, one of the island’s early political organizations. He fell ill late in 1910 and died in hospital in March 1911. He was still relatively young, but his 1900 conference set an important institutional and political precedent for later Pan-African congresses and movements.

Legacy

1. The University of the West Indies, St Augustine, held the conference “Henry Sylvester Williams and Pan-Africanism: A Retrospection and Projection” in January 2001.
2. A memorial plaque at 38 Church Street, Marylebone, commemorates Williams as an anti-slavery and civil-rights campaigner and the first Black councilor in Westminster. Verify the precise unveiling date before retaining it.
3. Williams was placed 16th in the 2003 edition of 100 Great Black Britons.

Source:
http://www.100greatblackbritons.com/bios/henry_sylvester_williams.html
http://www.encyclopedia.com/history/historians-and-chronicles/historians-miscellaneous-biographies/henry-sylvester-williams
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Sylvester-Williams