Podcast Summary: The Opinions – Africa Is Rising. The World Shouldn’t Turn Its Back.

Host: Lydia Polgreen (NYT Opinion Columnist)
Guest: Howard French (Author/Former NYT Correspondent)
Air Date: November 12, 2025
Podcast: The New York Times Opinion — The Opinions

Overview

This episode of The Opinions explores the shifting global stance towards Africa, especially in the context of Western disengagement and rising African agency. Host Lydia Polgreen speaks with Howard French about his latest book on Kwame Nkrumah, Ghana’s founding president, using Nkrumah’s story as a lens to discuss Pan-Africanism, the role of the African diaspora, and what both the West and Africa stand to gain—or lose—at this critical juncture.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Diminishing Western Relationship with Africa

• Historic U.S. Engagement:
  French describes a post–World War II era when U.S. involvement in Africa was “rich, quite thick,” through aid, security relationships, and major agencies like USAID.
  • “Steadily over time, what we have seen is a dwindling of that kind of involvement. It didn’t happen overnight with the Trump administration. However, there’s been a rapid acceleration of this disengagement under the two iterations of Donald Trump’s presidencies.” (04:00, Howard French)
• Shift from Aid to Extraction:
  Humanitarian and security interests have atrophied. Economic engagement remains, but French calls it “more extractive, almost cynical,” focused on oil and rare earth minerals:
  • “Not in anything more transformative or more meaningful in terms of the economic lives of ordinary Africans.” (04:45, Howard French)
• Rise of Neo-Imperial Attitudes:
  Notable recent moments such as U.S. disinvestment, cuts to programs like PEPFAR, and presidential dismissals of African leaders (e.g., South African President Ramaphosa) illustrated growing Western indifference and even disrespect. (03:22–04:00, Lydia Polgreen)

2. Kwame Nkrumah, Pan-Africanism, and Global Blackness

• Who was Nkrumah?
  Born in a remote part of what became Ghana, Nkrumah emerged as a key leader at a pivotal time for African independence movements—nourished by intellectual exchange and the legacy of global Black activism.
• Intellectual Formation & Diaspora Connections:
  Nkrumah was shaped by encounters with Marcus Garvey–inspired Pan-Africanism (via US-educated mentors) and by time spent in Harlem and at Lincoln University, engaging with leaders like W.E.B. Du Bois, George Padmore, and others.
  • “He then goes on to Lincoln University… He starts visiting Howard University just then… entering into conversations with people like CLR James, Eric Williams… and with people like W.E.B. Du Bois and George Padmore…” (08:00–09:30, Howard French)
• Central Ideas:
  • Unity for Power: Nkrumah believed Africa’s division into small states—remnants of imperial manipulation—keeps it weak, and true independence would require unity and the leveraging of the African diaspora. (12:40, Howard French)
  • Diaspora as Resource: Nkrumah saw African Americans and the Black diaspora as Africa’s “most important resource”—not just in economic terms but for global political influence.
    • “Africans and the African diaspora are each other’s most important resource… They can bend the curve of American policy toward Africa…” (13:18, Howard French)

3. Return, Exchange, & Migration: Visions and Realities

• Back to Africa Movements:
  French details how, since the postbellum period, there have been both imposed and voluntary “Back to Africa” movements, weaving in Liberia and Sierra Leone, and discussing the symbolism and complexity of this ideal. (11:11, Howard French)
• Contemporary Migration Flows:
  Polgreen notes the rise in African immigration to the US—from 130,000 in 1980 to over 2 million in 2019—suggesting a new “Pan-African possibility” emerging within Black America. (20:05, Lydia Polgreen)
  • French points out this shift isn’t necessarily pessimistic—African immigrants and their children now play a growing role in reshaping American conceptions of Blackness and may “do the reverse of what Nkrumah was saying”—impacting Western policy from within. (16:57, Howard French)
• Changing Definitions of Black Identity:
  With the influx of African migrants, there’s an “effervescence” and sometimes tension as “African Americans and Africans are having to figure each other out.”
  • “Each comes with its own prejudices and its own notions of what it is to be a black person in this world.” (21:30, Howard French)

4. The Stakes: For Africa and the World

• Missed Opportunities and Risks:
  African population will double by 2070 (over 3 billion), and it will be a major source of global youth, labor, and urban growth.
  • Western disengagement risks global economic stagnation and political turmoil; ignoring Africa is “a delusion.”
    • “Do we want African cities that are awash with much larger slums… where poverty is, broadly speaking, the norm?… Those people are not going to sit still. Many more… are going to seek to emigrate.” (26:36–28:15, Howard French)
• What African Leaders Can Do:
  While the prospect of a truly united Africa may be distant, the “Nkrumah playbook” suggests borderless competition, pooling resources, and continental market-building as routes to strength in a hostile world.
  • “Africans need to completely remake or reimagine the way they engage with each other… Erase the effects of borders… pool our efforts to grow our markets collectively.” (24:30–25:50, Howard French)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the reality of diaspora engagement:
  “Nkrumah understood the power of this sort of thing and was able to imagine a future that if Africa could engage it, where activating the imaginations of diasporic peoples would allow Africa to enter a different space in the global framework.” (14:41, Howard French)

• On Western neglect and its implications:
  “If we decide that we have no interest in the matter and that we’re not spurred by a sense of opportunity, what happens with the risk is going to land in our laps anyway… pretending that distance will protect us… is a delusion.” (28:00, Howard French)

• On Black identity in flux:
  “Our entire concept of what it means to be a black American is in flux right now… Africans and African Americans are having to figure each other out to a degree and with an intensity that hasn’t been the case until very recently.” (21:30, Howard French)

Important Timestamps

• 00:46 – Lydia Polgreen introduces the topic and guest
• 02:27 – Howard French outlines the arc of U.S.–Africa relations
• 06:00 – Introduction to Kwame Nkrumah and the logic of Pan-Africanism
• 13:18 – Nkrumah’s dual insight: unity and diaspora as resource
• 16:57 – Modern African migration to the U.S. and changing diasporic dynamics
• 21:00 – African identities and shifting Black American experience
• 23:30 – Challenges and opportunities for African leadership today
• 26:36 – What the West risks and the global stakes of Africa’s future
• 29:33 – Episode wrap-up and final thoughts

Tone & Style

The tone throughout is thoughtful, reflective, and urgent—balancing historical analysis with present-day policy critique and hope for future empowerment. French is generous in his perspective, blending scholarly depth with lived experience; Polgreen adds personal context and a journalistic eye.

Summary Takeaway

The episode is a searching conversation about how the world’s engagement with Africa—past, present, and future—matters not just for Africans or Americans but for the planet. Through the story of Nkrumah and the evolving diaspora, it champions a vision in which Africans, both on the continent and abroad, seize agency over their destiny, and the rest of the world, especially the West, recognizes what’s at stake in doing otherwise.