Struggle and archive
The formerly exiled ANC activist and later judge Albie Sachs is archiving his life, including a new film that forms part of a larger project of legacy-making.
392 Article(s) by:
Sean Henry Jacobs
Sean Henry Jacobs is the founder of Africa is a Country and Professor of International Affairs at The New School.
The genuine goema captain of Cape Town
The musician Mac McKenzie, who passed away in April 2024, helped pioneer a sound that captured the Mother City’s Creole heritage.
Quando eu digo África
Por que as histórias sobre o sofrimento africano são tão persistentes?
When I say Africa
Why are stories about African suffering so persistent?
There are no monuments
Gladys Nzimande-Tsolo, who died on 27 September 2023, was a South African freedom fighter. Why has she been forgotten?
The next episode
We announce some major changes at Africa Is a Country. A director of operations and a new editor.
On Safari
It's time for our annual end of the year publishing break.
On safari
For the 10th anniversary of the Marikana massacre, we are planning a public event on August 20th to reflect on its legacies.
Inhabiting the shapes and sounds and patterns of other people
May 21 marks the anniversary of the writer and commentator Binyavanga Wainaina’s untimely death in 2019. He was 48.
Not so quiet resilience
David Samaai was the first black (and coloured) South African to play at Wimbledon in 1949. He was 21 years old. He did so before the Americans, Althea Gibson and Arthur Ashe.
The Russians are here
Russia’s war with Ukraine has inaugurated the new Cold War most feared, and some wanted. Which side are you on?
The Russians are coming, the Russians are coming!
Where do African countries fall in the threatened invasion of Ukraine by Russia? Will African states side with the US or their European allies or with Russia?
Letters of recommendation
On the South African-born anthropologist John Comaroff and the political economy of silence in academia.
There’s a metaphor in there somewhere
Thoughts on the conclusion of the 2021 African Cup of Nations.
Are strongmen or liberal democracy our only choices?
With the recent series of military coups, especially in West Africa, what is left for the future of politics on the African continent?
Back from Safari
If you hadn't noticed, we were on our annual break from just before Christmas 2021 until now. We are back, including with some inspiration.
Growing pains
For all the grief Afropunk gets, including its commercialization and appetite for expansion, it still manages to bring people, mostly black, together over two days for a pretty great party.
Bono’s vanity
This #ThrowbackThursday piece from 2007 on Vanity Fair's famous "Africa" issue, makes for fun, at times depressing, reading of the debates we hopefully left behind.
On Safari
Every year, around this time, we take a month long break from publishing. We need it.
When the war is over
In his new book, the Ugandan academic Mahmood Mamdani argues that breaking cycles of violence requires collective action. He finds hope in the unfinished project of South Africa's anti-apartheid struggle.