"Towards African Unity"
Speech
"Our continent is unmade; it still awaits its creation and its creators." The host of the founding conference on unity and its means.
We are determined to create a union of Africans. In a very real sense, our continent is unmade; it still awaits its creation and its creators.
This is the other side of 1963. Where Nkrumah demanded a union government immediately, Selassie observed that "unity is the accepted goal" while "we argue about techniques and tactics." Both men spoke at the same founding conference: the disagreement over how to unite Africa is as old as the organization itself, and as current.
Context
As host of the founding conference, Haile Selassie was chosen as the OAU's first chairman, and the archive hosting this text presents it as his address to the summit. He named the continent's first task as completing liberation, in Rhodesia, Mozambique, Angola and South Africa, and urged Africans to submerge their differences "in the quest for common goals." (Title as used by the hosting archive; the exact delivery date within May 1963 is unconfirmed.)