The movement that aspires to the unification of all Africa, a federal arrangement that would result in a kind of United States of Africa, and which would be based on African traditions. Pan-Africanism began in earnest in the early 1900s, and gathered momentum in the 1950s as African countries began to win their independence from colonial rule. In 1963 the Organization of African Unity (OAU) was founded, and it has since been the primary continent-wide African organization. But over the last forty years, much of the steam has gone out of pan-Africanism. Ethnic, regional, and ideological barriers have been too great, and many of the newly independent African countries have been reluctant to contemplate surrendering their sovereignty to an all-African federation.