The Neo-Black movement is a socio-cultural organisation that sincerely seek to revive, retain and modify where necessary those aspects of African culture that would provide vehicles of progress for Africa and her peoples. The Neo Black Movement holds that a people can only progress rapidly by using and modifying where necessary such knowledge and instruments that has since distant past been familiar to them.
Apart from fighting to stop African culture from liquidation, the Neo Black Movement attempts to spread the message of the need for peace, respect and tolerance among various races of the world. For this reason the movement unequivocally condemns in every form racism and apartheid wherever it exists in the worldHistory
The Neo-Black Movement of Africa was formed in the 1976/1977 academic session at the Ekehuan Campus University of Benin. The motivation for its formation is two pronged.
The year 1977 was indeed a historic one for the black race. Globally the major issue confronting black people was the total Political emancipation of the African continent. Namibia, Zimbabwe, Mozambique and Angola were in the final throes of colonial rule and exploitation. The sensitisation of the children in the Diaspora to answer the call of Mother Africa and to look homewards, had reached its highest with the just concluded second festival of Black Arts and Culture (FESTAC 77) in Lagos, Nigeria.
The inspiration came from the lives and works of men such as Marcus Garvey, Martin Luther King, W.E.B DuBois, Kwame Nkrumah, Nelson Mandela, Ben Bella and historic figures like Sundiata Keita, Shaka Zulu and Ewuare the Great. Other influences were the pan-Africanist teachings of musicians like Robert Nesta Marley, Peter Tosh and Fela Anikulapo Kuti.
The above influenced the ideological thought patterns of the Founding Fathers (FF) of the Neo-Black Movement. It was given the name, ''Neo Black Movement'' by a prominent professor of history and anthropology at the University of Benin (UNIBEN) who served as the first Patron. The Black Axe was the name of the quarterly News Magazine published by the Movement at the time to articulate its views. Members are known as ''Axemen'' each being presented with a symbolic wooden Axe on joining the Movement.
