A special type of political personality
Lateef K. Jakande, also known as Baba Kekere, was the first civilian governor of Nigeria’s Lagos State.
Ancestors
Hamba Kahle Sibongile Khumalo
South African singer Sibongile Khumalo (1957-2021) was a musical giant. She also launched her own label and advocated for women's rights.
The death of an exceptional woman
The cruel and lonely COVID-19 death of the South African land and rural women’s activist, Siza Ngubane.
The passing of Jerry John Rawlings
Lessons on radical politics from a 1970s political-cultural icon. Rawlings also dominated and shaped Ghanaian politics through the 1980s and 1990s.
Remembering Emma Gama Pinto
To those who did not know Emma Gama Pinto, she was just “the wife of Pio Gama Pinto,” the Kenyan anticolonial fighter, but to those who knew her, she was fearless in her own right.
Living on
The Indian activist ES Reddy led the fight against South African apartheid at the UN. More importantly, his life reflected the best of left internationalism.
David Graeber, Africanist
David Graeber (1961-2020) started his career as a scholar studying Madagascar and that informed what became his popular ideas about anarchism, debt, and globalization.
Bill Freund: Historian, Africanist, Intellectual
Bill Freund was a Marxist historian in method, attentive to political economy and to the material underpinnings of power, while retaining a critical distance to Marxism.
Ernest Wamba dia Wamba, a healer from within
We should honor Professor Ernest Wamba dia Wamba by carrying on his life's work.
Ernest Wamba dia Wamba, un guérisseur de l’esprit
Il sied d’honorer le professeur Ernest Wamba dia Wamba en continuant l’œuvre de sa vie.
Ernest Wamba dia Wamba mponyaji kutoka ndani
Tunapaswa kumheshimu Profesa Ernest Wamba dia Wamba kwa kuendelea na kazi ya maisha yake.
Goodbye Annar Cassam
Chambi Chachage’s tribute to Annar Cassam, assistant to late President Julius Nyerere of Tanzania, and a key figure in anti-colonial movements.
The book of his life
Father's Day reflections for the time of COVID-19.
Binyavanga’s writing was enough
A close friend remembers the Kenyan writer and commentator Binyavanga Wainaina (January 18, 1971 - May 21, 2019).
The world has lost a giant of development economics
Thandika Mkandawire (1940-2020) bravely stood up for social policies and the developmental state.
A people cannot bid farewell to their history
Remembering Marcelino dos Santos, founder of Frelimo and the former Vice President of the People’s Republic of Mozambique.
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 commitment to liberation, non-racialism and equality
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.