How Black Lives Matter Strengthened Afropean Relationships to the Continent

From BLM to Pan-Africanism to international solidarity, the movement’s afterlives continue to echo across the diaspora five years after its rise and fall.

Two men standing at the center of a square in London, one is wearing a facemask, the other is speaking into a microphone. Both are holding up their right fists. Someone is waving a blooded union jack.

Edward Adonteng II speaking at a rally that TNA organised on the 25th of July, 2020, outside Windrush Square in Brixton. The rally aimed to host a conversation amongst attendees, asking questions like "What does healing look like for the community?” and “Where do we start from?" The rally was interrupted by heavy police presence.

Photo by Edward Adonteng II

On May 25, 2020, a Minneapolis police officer murdered George Floyd, giving fuel to the largest protest movement in U.S. history. Millions mobilized against police brutality, and for a while, their rallying cry, "Black Lives Matter" (BLM), echoed across the world.

At the time, I was stuck in Germany because of the COVID-19 pandemic. My sister, Yael Wagner, and I made the documentaryschwarz, asking Black Germans what it felt like to live through this historical moment in a society that had yet to acknowledge that Black people were native to it.

While all of our protagonists were excited about BLM and grateful for the conversations it sparked, they felt that their experiences still didn't matter. Most of them had African, not African American, roots; Africa was not as cool as the U.S. and infinitely more misunderstood.

Three women sitting in a garden, two are on a bench, facing the camera, in conversation with one another. One is wearing a blue shirt, the other a beige blazer and beige pants. The woman with her back to the camera is wearing a red dress.

Many began looking to Africa more, learning about Pan-Africanism and wanting to nurture relationships with the continent as a way of understanding their own position in the BLM movement.

Photo by Alexander Sura

From Black Lives Matter to Pan-Africanism

At the intersection of BLM and COVID, the life of Edward Adonteng II, a writer, teacher, and community organizer from South London, paused for a few months in 2020. The video of Floyd's murder and the pandemic's racist realities in England ignited in him the need to organize.

"COVID was killing folks with African heritage in particular, and that wasn't because Black people were more susceptible to it. It was because of institutional factors," Adonteng, whose uncle was sent back home from the hospital and died as a result, tells OkayAfrica.

"I had a conversation with one of my mentors, and we asked: What are the realities of people of African heritage worldwide, and what protections are there? What approaches and sustainable practices can we take? We may not live to see that thing, but what can we do about that?"

Edward Adonteng giving a speech in a lecture theatre at SOAS, University of London.

One of the symposiums TNA put together was titled "When is the next Pan-African Conference?”

Photo by Edward Adonteng II

These questions inspired Adonteng's circle to organize with a future in mind instead of only coming together out of pain and sorrow. "Our varying Pan-Africanisms guided us and brought us together to become 'Tribe Named Athari' (TNA)."

TNA organizes Pan-African symposiums and now has a podcast on Pan-Africanism. "BLM illuminated several conversations that we need to have in Britain," says Adonteng. "It showed us that we have to strengthen our links across seas and have a global conversation."

A black and white image of Edward Adonteng II squatting on a rock, wearing a grey jumper and white trainers.

In 2021, Adonteng, who is Ghanaian, went to Egypt. “It was helpful for me to go to another part of the continent and still feel love and desire for liberation in a different sense,” he says.

Photo by Edward Adonteng II

A shifting perspective

While for many Black Germans, BLM introduced conversations about Blackness and Africanness for the first time in 2020; Black Brits had already started embracing their relationship to the continent with the rise of Afrobeats in 2016.

"There used to be times in the UK when being African was such an insult," says Tito Mogaji, a writer and founder of the cultural marketing agency Nourishment in East London. "A lot of people used to pretend to be Caribbean or biracial instead. BLM contributed to a sense of people either wanting to move back [to Africa] or reconnect with Pan-Africanism."

$A group of young people outside London\u2019s Arcola theater at night, laughing and smiling at the camera.$

Tito Mogaji is the founder of Nourishment, a community and a cultural marketing agency that connects Black British audiences with cultural institutions. They do innovative events that work with theaters, museums, art galleries to platform and amplify Black creative practitioners, to disrupt the way that the cultural sector works in the UK.

Photo by Tito Mogaji

Mogaji has always felt a strong connection to Africa and Nigeria specifically. During the BLM moment, he felt reassured that there was another home he could move to if the situation became unbearable.

On the other hand, there is an increasing consciousness that in Europe, Black Lives Matter has to be understood in more differentiated terms: all Black Lives Matter, yes, but there is a stark difference in the material realities of an Afropean and an African refugee.

“In Germany, BLM is forgotten at times, until something happens again and we remember that it’s still relevant.” - Madina Frey

Photo by Alexander Resch

For German Sudanese musical theater actor Madina Frey, BLM felt like a huge relief. Finally, German society was discussing what she had known all along. "People now knew that there's structural racism and that we're all a part of it," she says. "It gave us a language and framework for how to speak about these things."

Growing up with African Americans through her older brother, Frey developed a strong racial consciousness. When she traveled to Sudan for the first time in 2022, stepping into a reverse situation where she was lighter-skinned and therefore considered better than other ethnicities, she was reminded that Blackness is not a universal identity.

"I experienced the BLM dynamic from the perspective of the oppressor in Sudan," she says. "It showed me the problems through a magnifying lens and made me understand that discussing these topics is not only about language but about life and death."

“In Germany, it can feel like a luxurious problem to have. But I met people in Egypt who, because of Anti-Blackness, have no hope of finding work or improving their lives, and will get on a boat to cross the Mediterranean. It’s a matter of life and death.”

Photo by Alexander Resch

"At the protests in Berlin, lots of influencers and Black role models gave speeches to mobilize the people, but it didn't have a strong base of political organizing," says Helina Yohannes, an Eritrean Ethiopian multidisciplinary artist based in Berlin. "They left out a lot of important perspectives, like the experience of refugees in Germany. It was more focused on the Afro German struggle."

Afro German identity was first defined in the 1980s, when Audré Lorde united a group of Black German women around May Ayim and Katharina Oguntoye. "The Afro German struggle is about changing racist/colonial street names, but it often doesn't look towards Africa, so it doesn't really speak to me," says Yohannes.

During that time, her father and brother moved to Addis Ababa, where she visited them and explored the city's thriving art scene. "The thought that I should invest my efforts at home kept growing," she remembers. "It's too abstract to speak about the problems in Africa from our privileged position in Germany when I know that we are privileged at the cost of my people at home."

Heline Yohannes is wearing a blonde wig, brown leather coat and white tights, looking at the camera above her.

Conversations about Anti-Blackness and police violence are not centered on the most vulnerable people in Germany.

Photo by Helina Yohannes

The inadequacy of role models

"It's sad and disappointing that a lot of the BLM organizers were fallible. I think for a generation of people enthused by activism and the idea of racial consciousness, it was imperative that our leaders were careful with how they presented to the world," says Mogaji.

Adonteng sees this as a lesson organizers should learn and cites the excitement around Burkina Faso's presidentIbrahim Traoré as a contemporary example.

Five years on…

The world is turning towards right-wing extremism, and police violence has worsened. In Germany, Lorenz A., a Black German boy, was shot dead by police in April. Shortly before, Yohannes' neighbor, an Arab man, was shot dead by police.

"All our gains have been reversed," says Mogaji. "There's a greater social awareness about racial injustice, but it seems that the world is just unfazed or actively aggrieved and wants to double back on our progressive gains."

$Mogaji sits in front of a yellow and brown striped background, wearing a red jumper, smiling and holding a magazine that reads \u201cThe Culture Crypt.\u201d Two people\u2019s arms are holding other artefacts into the image.$

“I think what BLM taught us is that a simple rallying can create great coalitions.” - Tito Mogaji

Photo by Tito Mogaji

"People pretend to be aware more than they actually are," says Yohannes. "They have to pretend on social media, because they benefit from Black culture, but I don't think they'd act if they saw police violence on the street."

However, some practices of solidarity cultivated in 2020 still inform international solidarity. Adonteng mentions eSIMS for Sudan and Palestine, or individuals helping African students out of Ukraine. "BLM reminded us that our struggles are intertwined," he says. "It was a lesson in coalition building," agrees Mogaji.

While BLM felt like a hopeful bubble, more concerned with symbolic than material, economic, or political reforms, at the very least, it brought clarity to many and ignited a desire to understand their complexity as Afropeans.

From Your Site Articles