For communities across Africa and its global diaspora, the gathering underway in late October is more than a conference; it is a space where shared histories of dispossession are being named aloud and where plans for repair are being drawn up together. The Africa and African Diaspora Conference, meeting from 26 to 30 October under the 2026 theme “The Return to Africa,” describes itself as an independent, unifying platform dedicated to advancing African sovereignty, reparatory justice, and sustainable solidarity between Africa and people of African descent around the world.
Those themes took on particular weight when Rev. Prof. Dr Jerry Pillay, general secretary of the World Council of Churches, delivered the keynote address. His subject, “Churches and the struggles of Africans, people of African descent, and Indigenous Peoples,” placed the concerns of the delegates squarely within the long history of the ecumenical movement’s fight against racism.
Pillay spoke plainly about what colonial systems did to entire societies, extracting wealth while dehumanizing people. Indigenous communities across continents, he said, experienced conquest, displacement, forced assimilation, genocide, and the appropriation of ancestral lands. For the churches, he argued, there is no shortcut around this record: reconciliation cannot be proclaimed without first acknowledging history.
He reminded his audience that this acknowledgment is not new to the ecumenical movement. The inaugural assembly of the World Council of Churches in Amsterdam in 1948 identified racial prejudice and discrimination as denials of human dignity and justice. In the decades that followed, that commitment deepened significantly.
For the communities represented at the conference, many of whom carry the living memory of slavery, colonialism, apartheid, dispossession, and cultural destruction, Pillay’s framing of remembrance struck a careful balance. Remembering history, he said, is not an exercise in blame; it is an act of truth-telling. And truth-telling, in his view, is only the beginning. Without truth there can be no healing, and without memory there can be no transformation.
The stakes, he suggested, reach into the most intimate dimensions of human dignity. Whenever a person is denied dignity because of race, ethnicity, culture, language, ancestry, or origin, the image of God is violated.
Pillay also turned to the relationship between Indigenous communities and the land, a question that resonates directly with the conference’s focus on sovereignty and restoration. For many of these communities, land is not a commodity. Land is identity, he said. Land is history, spirituality, and community. The ecological crisis facing the world today, he added, reminds us that humanity cannot flourish while creation suffers.
What he called for, beyond words, was moral and spiritual transformation. Justice requires more than acknowledgment, he told the gathering; justice requires action. For communities shaped by the legacy of slavery, colonialism, apartheid, dispossession, and cultural destruction, healing cannot occur without concrete measures aimed at restoration. That insistence on tangible repair aligns closely with the conference’s own purpose as a platform for dialogue, strategic policy formation, and community-led action.
Meanwhile, Pillay’s participation extended beyond the keynote. He attended a luncheon celebration honoring the legacy of Dr Brigalia Bam in the ecumenical movement, an occasion that gave delegates a chance to reflect on the contributions of one of their own. He also took part in a media conference on gender-based violence, bringing the council’s attention to an issue that touches families and communities across the continent and the diaspora.
The gathering is set to conclude on a practical note. A conference declaration and action plan will be adopted on 30 October, giving the conversations, reflections, and commitments of the week a concrete form. For the delegates who have come together under the banner of “The Return to Africa,” the days ahead carry the hope that dialogue will translate into shared direction, and that the work of justice, restoration, and solidarity between Africa and its diaspora will move from principle into plan.