1919 – Pan-African Congress Leader Henry Sylvester-Williams Dies

Henry Sylvester-Williams, a Trinidadian lawyer and activist, died on June 3, 1911. He was a pioneering figure in the early Pan-African movement and convened the first Pan-African Conference in London in 1900. The conference brought together Black intellectuals from the U.S., Africa, and the Caribbean to discuss colonialism, racism, and global Black unity. Williams’s efforts laid the ideological foundation for future Pan-Africanists like W.E.B. Du Bois and Kwame Nkrumah. He also served as one of the first Black elected officials in the British Empire, winning a seat on the Marylebone Borough Council in London. His death marked the end of a critical early chapter in the global Black liberation movement. His vision of African unity and resistance to imperialism remains influential.