The General sleeps
As former Nigerian president Muhammadu Buhari’s death is mourned with official reverence, a generation remembers the eight years that drove them out.
Obituary
When a star dies
On the tragic death of 24-year-old marathon record holder Kelvin Kiptum.
A man of few words
Late Kenyan President, Mwai Kibaki, could be a political heartbreaker and a great disappointment when he moved smoothly on from a cause.
God was everywhere in the street
Renowned Ghanaian highlife musician, Nana Ampadu, died on September 28, 2021. In this interview from 2007, historian Jennifer Hart talks with him about the music that made him famous.
The king is dead
The death of the Zulu king highlights the unresolved issues that continue to shapes lives in the KwaZulu-Natal province of South Africa.
A special type of political personality
Lateef K. Jakande, also known as Baba Kekere, was the first civilian governor of Nigeria’s Lagos State.
An indispensable figure of African photography
Homage to Santu Mofokeng, photographer of quotidian black life in South Africa.
The short, white woman with a South African accent
Urdang reflects her long friendship with fellow political exile Jennifer Davis, the anti-apartheid activist and changemaker.
Reenchanting Teju Olaniyan
Among the many legacies of Teju Olaniyan’s teaching and writing would be a project to not only speak in the ideological name of Africa, but to redistribute the power of speaking in that name.
Ben Turok’s commitments
Turok, who died at 92, was committed to fighting for the ideals of the left in South Africa. It is worth reviewing what his contribution to these ideals were in the final chapter of his life.
Jennifer Davis: Fearless and visionary
Davis, who died at 84 on October 15th, was a prominent leader of the anti-apartheid movement in the US and an analytical thinker and visionary.
Reading John Mbiti from Uganda
The late Mbiti is praised for indigenizing Christianity. However, his veneration of "African" tradition also served as theological justification for authoritarian rule.
A living monument of the struggle
The passing of American economist Ann Seidman has again spotlighted the impacts of committed scholarship on Africa.
The beautyful ones
A personal reflection, by the daughter of a fighter in Zimbabwe's Second Chiumurenga, on the death of President Robert Mugabe.
Mugabe and the tradition to not speak ill of the dead
What is the proper way for young Zimbabweans to remember Robert Mugabe's legacy?
How Africa shaped Immanuel Wallerstein
Africa and its peoples were central to the great Immanuel Wallerstein's intellectual development and political activism.
The emptiness of an ending
With Mugabe's death, might there be space for a new self-definition as a nation in Zimbabwe, as a broad family of nationals, with a shared national project?
The Coloured Gangster
In Cape Town, gangs have come to dominate social and economic life for the city’s mostly coloured working class.
Apartheid, anthropology and Johnny Clegg
All that French marketing schtick aside about "the white Zulu," Johnny Clegg was a real one.
We are all Haitians
In memory of J. Michael Dash, the Caribbean thinker and literature scholar.