African socialism is a belief in sharing economic resources in a "traditional" African way, as distinct from classical socialism. Many African politicians of the 1950s and 1960s professed their support for African socialism, although definitions and interpretations of this term varied considerably. This is because African socialism has not been the product of one single thinker. One example of a definition of African socialism was phrased as a metaphor by de Graft Johnson, from the University of Ghana, in 1962: the African extended-family system writ large.