Without these African towns, the Pan-African dream would never have been born

Haile Selassie opening the 1963 meeting that birthed the OAU

Addis Ababa

In 1960, Addis Ababa hosted the second All-African People’s Conference.  The countries in the initial meeting in Accra were joined by the Algerian Provisional Government (Pre-independent Algeria), Cameroun, Guinea, Nigeria, Somalia and the United Arab Republic ( Egypt and Syria, then a sovereign state).

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At this meeting, the idea of a united African continent as proposed by Nkrumah was not welcome as most leaders preferred independent states within a union. Out of this, two factions in the Pan African movement was born: the Casablanca Bloc and the Monrovia Bloc.

In 1963, another summit was held in the city with 32 African states, where the Organisation of African Unity was formed.