Winnie Mandela and the people’s doctor
The murder of Abu Asvat has clouded Winnie Mandela's legacy. Theirdeep friendship symbolized what could have been in the struggle forfreedom.
History
Set the world on fire
How black women shaped black nationalist and internationalist movements in the twentieth century United States.
When Ghanaians put their arms around New York City
Today, 30,000 of the 235,000 Ghanaian immigrants to the US call New York City home.
The unfinished business between Cameroon and France
France would rather play puppeteer than transparently acknowledge its role in first shaping — and now underhandedly curating — its colonial past.
The Kalahari cattle market
Land, landlessness and the German genocide of Namibians at the turn of the 20th century.
What lessons on fascism can we learn from Africa’s colonial past?
In the 1930s fascism’s face was immediately recognizable in colonial Africa. It was neither a foreign concept nor an external threat in Africa.
Patrice Lumumba (1925–1961)
"Africa will write its own history and in both north and south it will be a history of glory and dignity" (Lumumba, 1960)
MLK was a Pan-African
On the third Monday of January each year, Americans mark MLK's birthday with a public holiday. Africans should too.
The Arabs had a country
No figure in the Arab world embodies the ideals and contradictions of Pan-Arabism more than Egypt's Gamal Abdel Nasser.
Inheritances of our fathers
History reminds us that the past is not something that can or should be left behind. Rather, we are morally obliged to keep reflecting on them.
What’s a national anthem got to do with anything?
Next time 'Die Stem' part of the South African anthem plays, the appropriate reaction is to sit down or take a knee.
Anti-racism without race
Italy also lacks a fully developed movement against racism led by people of color. It doesn't help that white activists prefers to racism as xenophobia.
Story of a South African Farm School
Events at South Africa's oldest agricultural college become an object lesson in how mastery over language upholds mastery over land.
The Uber driver and Muhammad Ali
When your Uber driver has never heard of Muhammad Ali you realize you're not his friend and you and he occupy different worlds.
History, memory, and the nation
A website archive makes the case that Liberia needs a history that will be called 'history after the settlers.'
Egypt’s Modern Pharaohs
Except for one-year, when Mohamed Morsi was President, modern Egypt has only been ruled by military regimes
Is there a Left in Nigeria?
Most contemporary observers of Nigerian politics would be surprised to learn that the Left has been a significant part of the country’s postcolonial history.
When Haile Selassie went to Jamaica in 1966
The 21 April 1966 visit by Ethiopian emperor Haile Selassie to Jamaica casts a big spell over the appeal of Ethiopia to Rasta and how Ethiopians perceive Rasta in turn.
The Radical Historian
Martin Legassick (1940-2016) was key to revisionist tradition among South African historians that made connections between apartheid and post-war capitalism.