A revelatory history of how postcolonial African Independence
movements were systematically undermined by one nation above all: the
US.
In 1958 in Accra, Ghana, the Hands Off Africa conference brought
together the leading figures of African independence in a public show of
political strength and purpose. Led by the charismatic Kwame Nkrumah,
who had just won Ghana's independence, his determined call for
Pan-Africanism was heeded by young, idealistic leaders across the
continent and by African Americans seeking civil rights at home. Yet, a
moment that signified a new era of African freedom simultaneously marked
a new era of foreign intervention and control.
In White Malice, Susan Williams unearths the covert operations pursued
by the CIA from Ghana to the Congo to the UN in an effort to frustrate
and deny Africa's new generation of nationalist leaders. This
dramatically upends the conventional belief that the African nations
failed to establish effective, democratic states on their own accord. As
the old European powers moved out, the US moved in.
Drawing on original research, recently declassified documents, and told
through an engaging narrative, Williams introduces readers to idealistic
African leaders and to the secret agents, ambassadors, and even
presidents who deliberately worked against them, forever altering the
future of a continent.
