25th Annual Africa Conference

African contributions to European cities and 'civilisation’ have not been fully recognised. Most often, discussions around European enslavement of Africans, colonialism, African migration—legal or illegal—and African development revolve around problems and solutions for Africa and within Africa. Such debates have overlooked African intellectual contributions and, more recently, African influences on reshaping European cities. I therefore seized the opportunity to speak about African contributions at the 25th African Conference at the University of Texas at Austin from 4th to 5th April 2026. The conference theme was “Movements, Migrations, Labour & Displacements in Africa and the African Diaspora,” convened by Prof. Toyin Falola.

I employed Hannah Arendt`s concept of “Race Thinking Before Racism” as a chronological guide to explain how Anton Wilhelm Amo, a Ghanaian child who grew up in Germany at a time most Africans were enslaved in Europe and the Americas, made intellectual contribution to European philosophy in the 1720s and how Africans living in Germany and their allies have rallied about Amo to rename a street of Berlin after Amo. I centred Amo`s own thesis on “the right of Africans” as a major reason he gains traction from African activists, intellectuals and Europeans in the contemporary moment.

I also applied the concept of “homelessness” from Arendt to reflect on what occasioned African migration – European imperialism, much more so, to reflect on my own circumstances, education and writing in Germany.  If Arendt is correct that European imperialism set the conditions for African migration, legal and illegal, then at what point would such conditions be removed? Or at what point would African migration problems be separated from African contributions to Europe and acknowledged in our contemporary times? 

Amo's thesis on the right of Africans becomes urgent in confronting the conditions of “homelessness” and the issues the foregoing questions raise. 

BTU Cottbus-Senftenberg generously supported my participation through the GRS Travel grant.