1960 - The Year of Africa

1960 has been known as "The Year of Africa".  Decolonization was in full swing with 17 African nations declaring independence in 1960.

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Wikipedia records the 1960 African independence progress as follows...

Granted independence in 1960 from France...

• Mauritania
• Mali Federation (split into Mali and Senegal on August 20)
• Gabon
• Republic of Congo
• Central African Republic
• Chad
• Ivory Coast (Côte d'Ivoire)
• Upper Volta (renamed to Burkina Faso in 1984)
• Niger
• Dahomey (renamed to Benin in 1975)
• Madagascar
• Togo (formerly French Togoland)
• Cameroon (Cameroun, joined with the British Cameroons in 1961)

Granted independence in 1960 from the United Kingdom...

• Somalia  (British Somaliland and the Trust Territory of Somalia)
• Nigeria

Granted independence in 1960 from Belgium...

• Democratic Republic of Congo (formerly the Belgian Congo) 

CBC News has posted a short article on Africa in 1960 with particular reference to Kenyan Author Ngugi wa Thiong'o.  CBC Article

In South Africa it was the year of the Sharpeville Massacre and the year in which the ANC was "outlawed".  Elsewhere in Africa there was "cold war chaos" as the US and USSR engaged in all manner power struggles and "proxy wars", with scant regard for the welfare of the budding new nations.  Nowhere was this chaos more pronounced than in the Congo of 1960.  The violence in the Congo from '60-'67 would claim over 100,000 lives including Patrice Lumumba.

TTFN... Rob

"Don't weep my love. One day history will have its say. Not the history they teach in Brussels, Paris or Washington, but our history. That of a new Africa."  Patrice Lumumba