The African World

Responsibility of a Pan-African Socialist  A speech by Osagyefo     Osagyefo on African Renaissance 

The Wealth of the West  Was Built on Africa’s Exploitation (Richard Drayton)

Send contributions to: ChickenBones: A Journal / 2005 Arabian Drive / Finksburg, MD 21048— I became aware of Rudy Lewis’ labor of love a few short months ago during a visit to Kalamu ya Salaam’s e-drum listserv. As soon as I saw the title of the journal I knew it was about Black folks, and the power of the written word.  A quick click took me into a journal that’s long on creativity, highlighting well-known, little known, and a little known writers, and commitment to the empowerment of Black folks. I contacted Rudy to ask if he’d consider publishing some of my work. His response was immediate, and a couple of days after I’d forwarded some poems to him—they were part of ChickenBones. What I didn’t know was that this journal has been surviving for the last five years with very little outside financial support. . .  If we want journals like this to “thrive” we need to support them with more than our website hits, praise, and submissions for publication consideration.

—Peace, Mary E. Weems (January 2007)                       

My Soul is anchored: poems from the mourning Katrina national writing project — now on sale

Minstrelsy and White Expectations Reviewing WP Columnist Eugene Robinson Editorial by Rudolph Lewis

The Great Mosque of Djenné is the largest mud brick or adobe building in the world and is considered by many architects to be the greatest achievement of the Sudano-Sahelian architectural style, albeit with definite Islamic influences. The mosque is located in the city of Djenné, Mali on the flood plain of the Bani River. The first mosque on the site was built around the 13th century, but the current structure dates from 1907. As well as being the centre of the community of Djenné, it is one of the most famous landmarks in Africa. It has been a great incentive and model for the lively type of adobe architecture in the Inner Niger Delta region [1], which has been extensively inventorised by Archnet . Along with the “Old Towns of Djenné” it was designated a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1988.—Wikipedia

What Is Life: Reclaiming the Black Blues Self (Kalamu ya Salaam) / Protecting Our Schools (Shea Howell) / Real Life Education (Gloria Lowe)

Saving Africa’s precious written heritage

“We are losing manuscripts every day. We lack the financial means to catalogue and protect them,” said Mr Boularaf, who recently rescued his collection from the rubble of a mud building next door that collapsed after a rainstorm. Now a giant, new, state of the art library has landed – rather like a spaceship – in the dilapidated centre of Timbuktu, offering the best hope of preserving and analysing the town’s literary treasures. After several years of building and delays, the doors are finally about to open at the Ahmed Baba Institute’s new home – a 200 million rand (£16,428,265) project paid for by the South African government.

Martin Luther King Jr. on Malcolm X  /  NGOs, an extension of US foreign policy /  Baby Doc Duvalier returns to Haiti  /  After Midnight—Coleman Hawkins

Black is not thought beautiful—Racial intolerance is pervasive in Lebanon and in much of the region—26 May 2012—The multilingual, fashion-conscious residents of Beirut, Lebanon’s capital, fancy their city to be cosmopolitan. But not everyone is welcome. Black people and foreigners from Asia and elsewhere in the third world who make up the bulk of migrant workers are often turned away from the city’s smarter venues. Conscious of the bad blood this can cause, Lebanon’s government has warned beach clubs against barring entry on the basis of race, nationality or disability.

But racism is unlikely to be erased overnight, either in Lebanon or in many other Middle Eastern countries where blacks are routinely looked down on. Racist taunts are often heard on Egypt’s streets, and in Yemen, darker-skinned people, known as al-akhdam (“the servants”), who make up perhaps 5% of the population, are confined to menial jobs and tend to dwell in slums. In Libya rebel militias often targeted darker-skinned people from nearby countries such as Chad and Mali and from countries further south, accusing them of being mercenaries of Muammar Qaddafi. Filipinos, Sri Lankans and Chinese-Americans, among others, whisper of racist slurs both at work and on Lebanon’s streets. —economist / Discrimination against Blacks

Clyde Woods—Arrested Development  / Atlanta Citizens Confront Cong. John Lewis Over Support For Unjust War in Libya / Eyewitness Libya: Harlem Report  P. 1

How Ola Orekunrin became a doctor at age 21 and went on to found  West Africa’s first air ambulance service——27 May 2012— Born and raised in England and of Nigerian parentage, Ola Orekunrin made history when at the age of 21 she became a medical doctor thus becoming one of the youngest medical doctors in England. She started her medical degree at the University of York and passed with flying colours. She was raised by foster white parents and went to a primary school run by Catholic nuns and her family often struggled to make ends meet. According to her, her foster mother, Dorren was a tremendous influence in shaping her life. Now at age 26, Orekunrin is founder of The Flying Doctors, the first air ambulance service in West Africa. She was prompted to start the new venture after her younger sister died of anaemia. Her sister was always in and out of hospitals and eventually died for lack of the availability of an air ambulance. But starting this venture was not easy.

She gave up a high flying job in England and her dreams of becoming the president of the British Medical Association and minister for the conservative party and moved to Nigeria. . . . “Our mission is simple— to provide the best possible standard of health care to all.” When asked if poor Nigerians would be able to benefit from her service, she said: “What I do hope is that more states will take up cover as well as making it increasingly available to the common man. I know that as Nigeria starts to take health care reform more seriously, this will begin to happen.”—cp-africa.com   /   Infectious Ideas Ola Orekunrin

Eyewitness Libya: Harlem P.2 /  Eyewitness Libya: Harlem P. 3 / Eyewitness Libya: Houston TX Presentation / The Wayfarer 4th Quarter 1967 Black Baltimore

Strategic Vision: America and the Crisis of Global Power

By Zbigniew Brzezinski

A Past Denied

The Invisible History of Slavery in Canada

By Mike Barber

An African Gathering in Senegal (Runoko Rashidi)  / My Mother Was a Maid (Joyce E. King)

Military Intervention in the Ivory Coast  (Abayomi Azikiwe) / Manning Marable Reinvents Malcolm X

I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel To Be Free  / Michele Alexander—The New Jim Crow /  Coleman Hawkins—After Midnight  / UN Speech by President Mugabe Pt 2  / Mugabe speech 62nd UN General assembly

China to Loan South Sudan $8 Billion—30 April 2012—China has agreed to loan oil-rich South Sudan eight billion dollars for infrastructure development, according to Juba government spokesman, Barnaba Mariel Benjamin. “It will fund roads, bridges, hydropower, agriculture and telecommunications projects… within the next two years,” he said, giving details of a visit this week to China by South Sudan’s President Salva Kiir.

“Details (of the projects) will be defined by the ministers of the two countries and by the Chinese firms in charge of the work,” said the spokesman for the world’s youngest nation. Energy-hungry China is the largest purchaser of oil from South Sudan, which proclaimed independence last July, and is also a longstanding business partner of Sudan from which it also buys oil.—AfricanGlobe / Modern Chinese Tanks for the Sudan

President Obama British Parliament Speech London England (May 25, 2011)  /  Minister Farrakhan’s Conference on US, NATO attack on Libya (June 15, 2011)

Reports: U.S. Military to Help Fight Nigerian Terrorists—David Axe—11 November 2011—The Pentagon’s shadow war in Africa could have a new front, if reports coming out of Nigeria are accurate. U.S. troops are headed to Nigeria to help local forces do battle with Boko Haram, an Islamic terror group that has killed up to 400 people this year in an escalating campaign of bombings and shootings. At least that’s what Nigerian military sources tell Scott Morgan, a journalist based in Washington, D.C. who writes under the pseudonym “Confused Eagle.” The Guardian also has the story. U.S. officials have refused to confirm the deployment. . . . Last month, President Barack Obama announced he was sending 100 U.S. advisers to help the Ugandan army track the Lord’s Resistance Army rebel group in Congo. And this year the Pentagon has quietly set up a number of new bases in Ethiopia and the Seychelles to provide air support to all these operations.—Wired

Religion is the organization of spirituality into something that became the hand maiden of conquerors. Nearly all religions were brought to people and imposed on people by conquerors, and used as the framework to control their minds.” —Dr. John Henrik Clarke

“What was or is to be gained by the designation of the Africans into ‘separate rates’ by the European invaders and colonizers? It was, and still is, a means to divide the Africans and remove them from their cultural, scientific, political, spiritual and ancestral heritage, thereby enabling the colonialist slave masters from Europe to claim them and force their own concepts of morality, law, economics, politics, ancestral values, upon the Africans’ mind. For, without one’s consciousness of the past, one remains a virtual SLAVE to the whims of his MASTER…The ‘Negro’ is an example of such a phenomenon. The ‘BLACK MAN’ [African] is the opposite of the NEGRO.’ He is a MAN who has retained his self-consciousness and self-respect for his past, or one who has regained it after being forced to accept ‘NEGRO’ status, due to no fault of his own.”—Dr. Yosef ben Jochannon, Black Man of the Nile and His Family

“What became of the Black people of Sumer the traveler asked the old man, for ancient records show that the people of Sumer were Black. What happened to them? ‘Ah,’ the old man sighed, ‘they lost their history, so they died.’ “—Dr. Chancellor Williams  /  Transitional Writings on Africa    

Runoko Rashidi —

Delany and Blyden   Niger and the National Museum    African Libraries Project  Runoko Rashidi    The Black Presence in the Bible / Runoko in Budapest‏   / A Tribute to Ivan Van Sertima

Good Riddance to the African-Hater on the International Criminal Court—Glen Ford—“He has committed the ICC’s resources almost exclusively to concocting indictments against Africans.”—Luis Moreno-Ocampo, the chief prosecutor for the International Criminal Court, leaves the ICC at the end of this month. The entire Black world ought to say “Good riddance.” Moreno-Ocampo is from Argentina, and took office as the Court’s first prosecutor in 2003. He has committed the ICC’s resources almost exclusively to concocting indictments against Africans, while kissing Uncle Sam’s butt at every possible opportunity. Indeed, even as his term expires, Moreno-Ocampo continues to try to pin an ICC Marshal’s badge on the United States, even though the U.S. isn’t a signatory to the treaty that created the Court. In his last days in office, he remains determined to use the superpower to arrest Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir.

This, of course, would require that the U.S. commit acts of war against Sudan, in clear opposition to the will of the African Union. But, that appears to be Moreno-Ocampo’s purpose: to use the American superpower as a stick to threaten Africa.—blackagendareport

How the FBI Sabotaged Black America  /  I Mix What I Like! A Mixtape Manifesto  /  Civilians arm themselves to support Gaddafi  / Vijay Prashad—The Darker Nations, Part 1

Michelle Alexander Speaks At Riverside Church /  part 2 of 4  / part 3 of 4  / part 4 of 4   /  /  Cynthia McKinney—US lawmakers forced to support Israel  / Slum Stories: Lost Chanc

A political history of Africa since 1900—interactive  / Fences Talk with Viola Davis andDenzel Washington   / GasHole Documentary

Clinton Urges Africa to Abandon Gadhafi

By Peter Heinlein

13 June 2011U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has called for African nations to sever ties with Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi and demand his removal.  Speaking from a lectern where Gadhafi has often addressed African assemblies, the secretary of state acknowledged the Libyan leader’s influence in the 53-member body. But she urged African leaders to stand up for the organization’s democratic ideals and take the lead in demanding his ouster.”I know it is true over many years, Gadhafi played a major role in providing financial support for many African nations and institutions, including the African Union, but it has become clearer by the day he has lost his legitimacy to rule, and we are long past time when he can or should remain in power,” said Clinton. In the first-ever address by a U.S. secretary of state to the African Union, Clinton called for the continent’s leaders to isolate Gadhafi diplomatically. I urge all African states to call for a genuine cease-fire and to call for Gadhafi to step aside,” she said. “I also urge you to suspend the operations of Gadhafi’s embassies in your countries, to expel pro-Gadhafi diplomats, and to increase contact and support for the [rebel] Transitional National Council.”   Minister Farrakhan’s Conference on US, NATO attack on Libya (June 15, 2011)

Clinton Threatens Other African Leaders with Overthrow If They Back Gaddafi!— On Monday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton extended Gates’ shakedown of Europe to Africa’s leaders, instructing a meeting of the African Union in the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa that they must break relations with Gaddafi. “It has become clear by the da…y… that he has lost his legitimacy to rule and that we are long past the day when he can remain in powers,” she said. In an implied threat, she told the assembled delegates that they, too, might face overthrow like Gaddafi, Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak and Tunisia’s Zine Abidine Ben Ali. “Too many people in Africa still live under long-standing rulers, men who care too much about the longevity of their reign and too little about the legacy that should be built for their countries’ future,” she said.  Vijay Prashad—The Darker Nations, Part 1 /  Vijay Prashad—The Darker Nations, Part 2  / The Darker Nations: A People’s History of the Third World (Vijay Prashad)

 In-Dependence from Bondage / The ABCs of Class Struggle  /  Southern Needs  / Race Struggle is Class Struggle  /  Obama in Berlin (Grossman)

In-Dependence from Bondage (McCarthy )  Jamaica Upheaval  /  In Memory of John Maxwell  (Randall Robinson, et al)

Of St. Augustine, the African Restless Heart, and Search for Peace: St. Augustine of Hippo (354-430 A.D.) – Feast Day – August 28

 Dr. Rose Ure Mezu / Preface to Chinua Achebe: The Man and His Works (Rose Ure Mezu)  / Chinua Achebe: The Man and His Works

When a Job Disappears, So Does the Health Care— December 7, 2008— About 10.3 million Americans were unemployed in November, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The number of unemployed has increased by 2.8 million, or 36 percent, since January of this year, and by 4.3 million, or 71 percent, since January 2001. . . . . Some parts of the federal safety net are more responsive to economic distress. The number of people on food stamps set a record in September, with 31.6 million people receiving benefits, up by two million in one month. Nearly 4.4 million people are receiving unemployment insurance benefits, an increase of 60 percent in the past year. But more than half of unemployed workers are not receiving help because they do not qualify or have exhausted their benefits. About 1.7 million families receive cash under the main federal-state welfare program, little changed from a year earlier. Welfare serves about 4 of 10 eligible families and fewer than one in four poor children. NYTimes                           Single-Payer Health Care Would Stimulate Economy

A Nigeria Retired military General Gives Away $100 Million into his Charity

Even though several Nigerian millionaires have more money than they know what to do with, they’d rather keep it to themselves than give it away. However, a Nigerian oil magnate and former defense minister, TY Danjuma just might be a different breed. The 73-year old has put over $100 million of his own money into his Charity, the TY Danjuma Foundation—making it one of Africa’s largest charities, and Danjuma, the country’s biggest philanthropist.

TY [Theophilus Yakubu] Danjuma, a retired military General was Nigeria’s Chief of Army Staff in the 70s and served as the Minister of Defense during former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s tenure between 1999 and 2003. Danjuma has always been one of Nigeria’s most influential people. He was a close ally, loyalist and confidante of the late Nigerian dictator, Sani Abacha, who rewarded General Danjuma with an oil block. The block, which was located in Port Harcourt in the Niger Delta region, was left unexploited for several years. In 2006, he reportedly sold it to China’s offshore oil company CNOOC for what Danjuma said was $1 billion. After taxes, and paying off various dues, he said was left with over $500 million—Conelle

Michelle Alexander Speaks At Riverside Church /  part 2 of 4  / part 3 of 4  / part 4 of 4   /  /  Cynthia McKinney—US lawmakers forced to support Israel  / Slum Stories: Lost Chanc

Kwazibani: Nomfusi & The Lucky Charms  / Portraits of Power December 7, 2009  / Immortal Technique: No Haiti escape from capitalism! /  Emperor Obama vs the Arab people

Was DSK Stitched Up? By Alexander Cockburn—The French are for the millionaire. The Americans are for the maid. Among the French, three out of five think the IMF’s former managing director, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, has been framed.  (Strauss-Kahn tendered his resignation as head of the IMF May 18.)  Here in the USA  there’s not been a reliable poll, but public sentiment is clearly against Strauss-Kahn,  amplified by self-congratulation that America is a nation of laws, a maid’s word as potent as that of a millionaire, in contrast to the moral decay and deference to the rich prevalent  in  France.In Parisian financial circles some charge that this is an attack on “les juifs.” Following this line, they suggest it’s a plot by the Muslims, presumptively eager to contrive any embarrassment to a well-known Jew, and indeed ardent Zionist,  also perhaps because the agent of Strauss-Kahn’s downfall, the  32-year maid accusing Strauss-Kahn of a serious sexual assault—widely identified on French and West African websites as Nafissatou Diallo—is a Muslim from the West African nation of Guinea. (And yes, the name Diallo does ring a bell. Amadou Diallo (September 2, 1975–February 4, 1999) was a 23-year-old Guinean immigrant in New York City who was shot and killed on February 4, 1999 by four plain-clothes members of the NYPD who fired 41 rounds at him. They were all subsequently acquitted.) —Counterpunch  / The King of Kahel

Nappy Headed Women By Peggy Bertram 

  Uncrowned Queens  / 

There Must Still Be Something Out of Kilter Response to Don Imus  /  Prof. Molefi Asante on Libya & Cote D’Ivoire

Strauss-Kahn’s pals bid to pay off woman’s kin—By Oron Dan in Tel Aviv—Friends of alleged hotel sex fiend Dominique Strauss-Kahn secretly contacted the accusing maid’s impoverished family, offering them money to make the case go away since they can’t reach her in protective custody, The Post has learned. The woman, who says she was sexually assaulted by the disgraced former head of the International Monetary Fund, has an extended family in the former French colony of Guinea in West Africa, well out of reach of the Manhattan DA’s Office. “They already talked with her family,” a French businesswoman with close ties to Strauss-Kahn and his family told The Post. “For sure, it’s going to end up on a quiet note.” Prosecutors in Manhattan have done their best to keep the cleaning woman out of the reach of Strauss-Kahn’s supporters, but the source was already predicting success for the Parisian pol’s pals.

“He’ll get out of it and will fly back to France. He won’t spend time in jail. The woman will get a lot of money,” said the source, adding that a seven-figure sum has been bandied about. While the DA’s office has sequestered the maid—and is even monitoring her phone calls— her extended family lives in a village that lacks paved roads, electricity and phone lines. The average monthly income is $45, which is near-starvation, and some of her family members can’t even afford shoes. . . . Strauss-Kahn, 62, remains under house arrest in a pricey lower Manhattan pad secured by his billionaire wife, Anne Sinclair. . . . In a heartless reply, Strauss-Kahn, allegedly told her, “No, baby. Don’t worry, you’re not going to lose your job,” sources said, adding that he again repeated, “Don’t you know who I am?” .—NYPost

Bob Marley—So Much Trouble in the World  / Riz Khan—Malcolm X: Who was the man behind the legend?  /  Black in Latin America—Cuba: The Next Revolution  / Stevie Wonder – Documentary 1980

Biko and the Problematic of Presence i

By Frank B. Wilderson, III

Hunger for a Black President  / Biko Speaks on Africans  /  Introduction I Write What I Like

Runoko Rashidi —

Delany and Blyden   Niger and the National Museum    African Libraries Project  Runoko Rashidi    The Black Presence in the Bible

Gambia Government’s position on the tragedy in Cote D’Ivoire or Ivory Coast

The events in Ivory Coast have vindicated us on our earlier assertion that Western neo- colonialist sponsored agents in Africa that owe allegiance only to themselves and their Western masters are ready to walk on thousands of dead bodies to the Presidency. This is what is happening in Ivory Coast. Africans should not only wake up, but should stand up to the new attempts to re-colonise Africa through so called elections that are organized just to fool the people since the true verdict of the people would not be respected if it does not go in favour of the Western Backed Candidates as has happened in Cote D’Ivoire and elsewhere in Africa. What is really sinister and dangerous about the neo colonialist threat is that they are ready to use brute force, or carry out outrageous massacres to neutralize any form of resistance to the Western selected President as has happened in Cote D’Ivoire. In Ivory Coast, we know the role played by the former Colonial power who, outside of the UN Mandate, first Bombarded the Presidential Palace for Days and eventually stormed it through a tunnel that links the Presidential Palace to one of the residences of their diplomatic representative. . . .Yahya Jammeh 

Fifty Influential Figures in African-American History  / A Caring and Just Society  (President Barack Obama) / 50 Fascinating Facts for Women’s History Month

Music  Musicians / Living Legends / Robert Johnson and other Bluesmen /  One Mississippi, Two Mississippi: John Hurt. Fred McDowell

To the Imo Heartland in Search of Votes

A Learning Odyssey

By Cecile Oguguo Keke

Fraudulent Election Malpractices

in Imo State of Nigeria Election of President

By Dr. S. Okechukwu Mezu

Contract with the People of Imo State Lagos Story 1 of 3 /

 Lagos Stories 2 of 3 / Lagos Stories 3 of 3 / Funmi Iyanda / Charles “Charley Boy” Oputa

Books on African Film

African Film: Re-Imagining a Continent / Symbolic Narratives: African Cinema / African Cinema: Politics and Culture 

Africa Shoots Back: Alternative Perspectives In Sub-Saharan Francophone African Films   Black African Cinema  /

African Cinemas: Decolonizing the Gaze / Questioning African Cinema: Conversations with Filmmakers

*   *   *   *   *

African Films on DVD

Heart of Darkness: The Democratic Republic of the Congo

Black Girl / Borom Sarret /  Sugar Cane Alley /  Kirikou and the Sorceress /  Lumumba   Amandla: A Revolution in Four Part Harmony /

 Cry, The Beloved Country   /  The Power of One  / Bopha / Mandela and deKlerk / Cry Freedom  / Hotel Rwanda / Sarafina / Yesterday

Tsotsi  / Hyenas /  Mandabi  / Xala /  Madame Brouette  / Yeelen / Life on Earth / Karmen Gei  / Guimba The Tyrant / Daresalam  / Abouna / Chocolat

Ousmane Sembene, African cinema pioneer, dies

Langston Hughes “The Negro Speaks of Rivers”  /  Poetry by Langston Hughes—The Weary Blues  /  Slave Routes: A Global Vision (1)

Zimbabwe Prof Arrested, Tortured for Watching Viral Vids—By Sam Gustin—25 February 2011—Munyaradzi Gwisai, a lecturer at the University of Zimbabwe’s law school, was showing internet videos about the tumult sweeping across North Africa to students and activists last Saturday, when state security agents burst into his office.

The agents seized laptop computers, DVD discs and a video projector before arresting 45 people, including Gwisai, who runs the Labor Law Center at the University of Zimbabwe. All 45 have been charged with treason—which can carry a sentence of life imprisonment or death—for, in essence, watching viral videos. Gwisai and five others were brutally tortured during the next 72 hours, he testified Thursday at an initial hearing. There were “assaults all over the detainees’ bodies, under their feet and buttocks through the use of broomsticks, metal rods, pieces of timber, open palms and some blunt objects,” The Zimbabwean newspaper reports, in an account of the court proceedings.—Wired

is a Nigerian born 10 April 1957 in the northern Nigerian state of Kano into a wealthy Hausa-Muslim family. His mother Mariya Sanusi Dantata was the granddaughter of legendary Hausa businessman Alhassan Dantata, and his father Mohammed Dangote was Dantata’s business associate.—wikipedia

Dangote’s interests do not lie solely in cement, and neither are they restricted to Nigeria. His business interests spans across Africa and sectors such as cement, oil and gas, flour, sugar and textiles. He has invested $4 billion to build a new cement facility in the Ivory Coast and is building a $115 million cement plant in Cameroon, plus owns plants in Zambia, Senegal, Tanzania and South Africa. He has reiterated plans for this expansion to continue at an even greater pace, planning for Dangote Group to invest $7.5 billion in its expansion strategy over the next four years. . . .

He has invested $4 billion to build a new cement facility in the Ivory Coast and is building a $115 million cement plant in Cameroon, plus owns plants in Zambia, Senegal, Tanzania and South Africa

africanglobe

Exordium — In the Name of Allah / The Compassionate, the Merciful / Praise be to Allah, the Lord of Creation / The Compassionate, the Merciful, the Beneficent  / King of the Last Judgment / You alone we worship / To you alone we pray, Guide us / To the straight path, the path of  Those whom you have favored, not of / Those who have incurred your Wrath / Nor those who have gone astray / Amen

King Leopold’s Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa

By Adam Hochschild

King Leopold of Belgium, writes historian Adam Hochschild in this grim history, did not much care for his native land or his subjects, all of which he dismissed as “small country, small people.” Even so, he searched the globe to find a colony for Belgium, frantic that the scramble of other European powers for overseas dominions in Africa and Asia would leave nothing for himself or his people. When he eventually found a suitable location in what would become the Belgian Congo, later known as Zaire and now simply as Congo, Leopold set about establishing a rule of terror that would culminate in the deaths of 4 to 8 million indigenous people, “a death toll,” Hochschild writes, “of Holocaust dimensions.”

Congo’s tragedy the war the world forgot—In Bukavu, a 29-year-old human rights campaigner called Bertrand Bisimwa summarised his country’s situation for me with cruel concision. “Since the 19th century, when the world looks at Congo it sees a pile of riches with some black people inconveniently sitting on top of them. They eradicate the Congolese people so they can possess the mines and resources. They destroy us because we are an inconvenience.” As he speaks, I picture the raped women with bullets burying through their intestines and try to weigh them against the piles of blood-soaked electronic goods sitting beneath my Christmas tree with their little chunks of Congolese metal whirring inside. Bertrand smiles and says, “Tell me— who are the savages? Us, or you?”— Inndependent UK  / Kinshasa One Two

Recollections of Ivan Van Sertima—The Early Years  (Runoko Rashidi)  / Who Fears Death By Nnedi Okorafor

Slavery and Its Legacies at Emory University: Reflections on History and Accountability  /  Nina Simone—How It Feels To Be Free  /  Langston’s  I, Too

Criminalizing a Race Blacks and Prisons /   Oakland, Toward Radical Spirituality     / Strange Fruit  /  Lizz Wright—Stop  /  Lizz Wright—Hit The Ground

Ivory Coast president urges calm after Gbagbo is arrested—11 April—Ivory Coast President Alassane Ouattara called for calm Monday after forces stormed the president’s residence and arrested Laurent Gbagbo, whose refusal to accept the results of a presidential election last year plunged the West African nation into civil war.

“Finally, we have reached the dawn of a new era of hope,” Ouattara said in a televised address. “We had hoped this transfer had been different, but we have to focus on today.” He urged his countrymen to lay down their weapons and said he has asked the justice minister to start legal proceedings against Gbagbo, his wife and his colleagues. Gbagbo is being held at the Golf Hotel, the headquarters of both Ouattara and the United Nations. Fighting appeared to quickly end after Gbagbo’s arrest, said Alain Le Roy, under-secretary-general of the United Nations’ Department of Peacekeeping Operations. “To my knowledge, most of the fighting has stopped,” he said, adding that “there are pockets of resistance here and there.”—CNN

Carrie Mae Weems—Art: 21  /  Carrie Mae Weems Talks/ Rev Curtis Watson—Come Out of the Wilderness  /  Louis Armstrong—Mack the Knife 1959

Keenan Norris Of Obama and Oakland  /  Coal, Charcoal, and Chocolate Comedy  /   fresno gone   /  Freedom Vision  /  27 Days

Speech on the Founding of the OAAU

By Malcolm X

Days of US Slavery Closer Than We Think–Al Sharpton’s Forebears were owned by relatives of Senator Strom Thurmond, 1948 Dixiecrat   NYTimes

Al Sharpton and Barack Obama Wow Democratic National Convention

Rudy’s Place : Sussex County: A Tale of Three Centuries  Public Education in Sussex County in Black and White   History of Jerusalem Baptist Church

Sam Chatmon—Legends of Country Blues Guitar  /  Sam Chatmon—Pretty Mama  /  Sam Chatmon—Who’s Lovin ‘ You Tonight (1978)

The Saga of Cornell West: Cornel West Moves to Princeton  West Cites Reason For Quitting  Cornel West: An Editorial  Pass the Mic  Responses to Pass the Mic

West African leaders threaten use of force against Gbagbo—25 December 2010—(CNN)—At an emergency meeting Friday, West African leaders warned they will not hesitate to use “legitimate force” if necessary to defuse an escalating crisis in Ivory Coast sparked by incumbent President Laurent Gbagbo‘s refusal to cede power. “In the event that Mr. Gbagbo fails to heed this immutable demand of ECOWAS, the Community would be left with no alternative but to take other measures, including the use of legitimate force, to achieve the goals of the Ivorian people,” said a statement issued Friday by the 15-member Economic Community of West African States.—CNN

Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade (C) flanked by Burkina Faso’s President Blaise Compaore (L) and Nigeria’s President Goodluck Jonathan

China, Twitter and 20-Year-Olds vs. the Pyramids—by Thomas L. Friedman—5 February 2011—The Arab world has 100 million young people today between the ages of 15 and 29, many of them males who do not have the education to get a good job, buy an apartment and get married. That is trouble. Add in rising food prices, and the diffusion of Twitter, Facebook and texting, which finally gives them a voice to talk back to their leaders and directly to each other, and you have a very powerful change engine. I have not been to Jordan for a while, but my ears are ringing today with complaints about corruption, frustration with the king and queen, and disgust at the enormous gaps between rich and poor.

King Abdullah, who sacked his cabinet last week and promised real reform and real political parties, has his work cut out for him. And given some of the blogs that my friends here have shared with me from the biggest local site, Ammonnews.net, the people are not going to settle for the same-old, same-old. They say so directly now, dropping the old pretense of signing antigovernment blog posts as “Mohammed living in Sweden.”—NYTimes  / Egypt unrest  / The people have won!

Guerilla warfare and sniping, / Shun every open fight; / But snipe their flanks through the livelong day / And harry them through the night.  —Beleagured Men

Government Drops Charges Against Cheney, Halliburton—13 December 2010

The Federal Government’s effort at prosecuting former United States Vice President Richard Bruce ‘Dick’ Cheney and other officials of Halliburton paid off, following payment of huge sums of money to the coffers of Nigeria, as Nigeria has reportedly agreed to drop charges against Cheney and Halliburton. The development followed agreement reached between Nigerian officials in the negotiating team and top officials of the United States and Halliburton in a meeting held in London, weekend. At the meeting, Halliburton agreed to pay about N20 billion as criminal penalty, while promising to liaise with the United States Government to recover the outstanding $I32 million which is currently frozen in Switzerland. It was gathered that former United States President, George Bush, Snr and former United States Secretary of State, Mr. James Baker were part of the deliberations through conference calls.—AllAfrica

 A History of African American Music / Portia K. Maultsby collection, 1981-1986 / Archives of African American Music and Culture

The Matrix /  President’s Forum with Young African Leaders   /  Troy Davis about to be killed by the state of Georgia  / Eduardo Galeano: Mirrors: Stories

An Igbo Marriage 

Life as African Hungarian—Klara Bassey

By Hakeem Babalola

Africa: 50 Years of Independence

By Hakeem Babalola

The Second Slavery Ship  Gambian Godfather    A Nightclub Forbidden to African  Nigerians Blood on their Hands 

K’NAAN—T.I.A. (This Is Africa) /  Hugh Masekela—Coal Train Live /  Unomathemba /  Soweto Freedom Song / Eric Dolphy—God Bless the Child

To ‘Joy My Freedom  /  Washerwomen Sons and Daughters  Vanishing Washerwoman     Washerwomen in Brooklyn   Washer-Woman Poem 

t was two years ago, at 4 a.m. at her apartment in Maryland, that Peggielene Bartels got the news from West Africa. A relative called from Ghana to say that her uncle, the king of the fishing village of Otuam, had died. The news didn’t end there. She was also informed that she had been anointed his successor: King Peggy. . . . Nana Amuah-Afenyi VI is Bartels’ new title, but she is better known as King Peggy. This straight-talking, 57-year-old is the first woman in her fishing community of 7,000 people in Ghana’s Central Region to be anointed a king, or “nana.” She now juggles two lives — from the palace in Otuam and from a modest condo outside Washington, D.C. Since the 1970s, Bartels, a naturalized U.S. citizen, has been a secretary at Ghana’s Embassy in Washington where she still spends most of her time, running royal affairs back home in Otuam over the phone and on trips to Ghana.—NPR 

Shirley Sherrod—Fox News Destroying an Innocent Woman to Attack Obama / Rachel Maddow: Black People Are Coming To Get You Part 1 /  Part 2

The hard life of women streetworkers in Accra  /  Genius Burning Brightly: The Unraveling of Gil Scott-Heron  /  Africa is where music was born

Stormy Monday—Dianne Reeves & David Peaston / The Athlete (Atletu) Trailer /  Horace Andy—Natty Dread A Weh She Want  /  4 Aces Club

Africa My Motherland (Not)

By Honorée Fanonne Jeffers

Tell Me How Long

Has the Essence Train Been Gone?

By Honorée Fanonne Jeffers

Sly & the Family Stone—If You Want Me to Stay  /  Parliament—Flash light  /  Billionaires Pledge To Spread the Wealth  / Lottery Ticket Trailer

Muhammad Ali funny speech before fight Part 1   /  Muhammad Ali funny speech before fight Part 2  /  Muhammad Ali—the Greatest speaks

Nigeria 50-Year Anniversary—BBC My Country Documentary—Lagos Stories

Lagos Story 1 of 3 / Lagos Story 2 of 3 / Lagos Story 3 of 3

Funmi Iyanda, TV personality, talks to major Lagosians like eccentric entertainer Charles “Charley Boy” Oputa and Lagos State Gov. Babatunde Fashola.

Seldom is a documentary so explicitly colourful. Usually for whatever reason the documentary has to focus on specific topics and by force dismiss many related issues. It is not so here. Within the allotted time, the presenter masterfully weaves all related issues around an ancient Saga. Watch “Lagos Stories,” a documentary marking Nigerias’ 50th Independence Anniversary.  To commemorate Nigeria’s 50th anniversary, the BBC will air this three-part documentary that captures people and conversations around Nigeria. Embark on an epic journey around Nigeria and discover authentic Nigerian stories told from the Nigerian perspective. “My Country” has captured the heart and spirit of the Nigerian people, engaging them in eye-opening and down to earth conversations about their unique Nigerian experience. The documentary features the stories of various Nigerians—from ordinary citizens going about their business to celebrities in unusual but natural settings—capturing discussions that range from the hard hitting stories of the day to the every day challenges of Nigerian life.

The Exhilarating Generosity of Asa Hilliard  /  On the Passing of Asa Hilliard / Asa Hilliard Obituary /  If I Ain’t African  / Pan-African Nationalism in the Americas 

Ghana Freestyle / Part I—Addressing Sexual Terrorism  / Abbey Lincoln—Where Are The African Gods? /  Max Roach—All Africa / Abbey Lincoln—Down here Below

Runoko Rashidi Speaks in Nigeria

Interviewed by Lola Balola   

Jazz 101 buddy bolden’s blues legacy

By Kalamu ya Salaam

John Coltrane and Miles Davis—So What  /  Where Ghana Went Right  (John Schram )

Kenyans launch economic boycott 1 /  Kenyans launch economic boycott 2  / Civil Rights Roundtable 1963 /  Marimba Ani On the European Worldview

I AND I BOB MARLEY Book Trailer /  I AND I BOB MARLEY.(children’s book) / South Africa: This Revolution Will Be Embedded  / Count Basie Swingin’ the Blues

Chinua Achebe wins $300,000 Gish prize—By Philip Nwosu—Monday, September 27, 2010—The author of the epic novel, Things Fall Apart, Chinua Achebe, has emerged winner of the United States Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize. The Gish prize, which was established in 1994 by the Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize Trust and administered by JPMorgan Chase Bank as trustee, is given annually to “a man or woman who has made an outstanding contribution to the beauty of the world and to mankind’s enjoyment and understanding of life.” The prize is worth $300,000. . . . Achebe’s writings examine African politics and chronicle the ways in which African culture and civilization have survived in the post-colonial world. Some of his acclaimed works include A Man of the People (1966) and Anthills of the Savannah (1988). [The 80-year-old author has founded a number of magazines for African art, fiction and poetry.] Achebe, who is paralyzed from the waist down due to a 1990 car accident, is currently Professor of Africana Studies at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island.—SunNewsOnline

Shirley Sherrod—Fox News Destroying an Innocent Woman to Attack Obama / Rachel Maddow: Black People Are Coming To Get You Part 1 /  Part 2

What Is Life: Reclaiming the Black Blues Self (Kalamu ya Salaam) / God Parent of Hip-Hop? Nikki Giovanni’s Truth is On the Way (Mark Anthony Neal)

Idi Amin Died Today; Watch General Idi Amin Dada (Portrait of A Dictator)

Today in history . . .  Idi Amin Dada, the military dictator and President of Uganda from 1971 to 1979, died August 16, 2003, in Saudi Arabia, where he’d been living in exile since 1979. Most are likely most familiar with Forest Whitaker’s interpretation of Amin, in the 2006 film, The Last King of Scotland, for which he earned an Academy Award.

But if I may instead/also direct your attention to director Barbet Schroeder’s 1974 documentary on Amin, titled, General Idi Amin Dada, made while he was very much at the height of his power. Schroeder was given unprecedented access to the dictator, who was influential in the making of the film, but it’s far from propaganda material.   

Basil Davidson obituary—By Victoria Brittain—9 July 2010—Davidson [(9 November 1914 – 9 July 2010) a British historian, writer and Africanist] was enthused early on by the end of British colonialism and the prospects of pan-Africanism in the 1960s, and he wrote copiously and with warmth about newly independent Ghana and its leader, Kwame Nkrumah. He went to work for a year at the University of Accra in 1964. Later he threw himself into the reporting of the African liberation wars in the Portuguese colonies, particularly in Angola, Mozambique, Cape Verde and Guinea-Bissau. . . . In the 1980s, with most of the African liberation wars now won—except for South Africa’s— Davidson turned much of his attention to more theoretical questions about the future of the nation state in Africa. He remained a passionate advocate of pan-Africanism. In 1988 he made a long and dangerous journey into Eritrea, writing a persuasive defence of the nationalists’ right to independence from Ethiopia, and an equally eloquent attack on the revolutionary leader Colonel Mengistu and the regime that had overthrown Haile Selassie. Guardian

Basil Davidson’s  “Africa Series”:  Different But Equal  /  Mastering A Continent  /  Caravans of Gold  / The King and the City / The Bible and The Gun

The Importance

of an African Centered Education

By Kalamu ya Salaam

Tarzan Can Not Return to Africa But I Can

A-B-C-D: PANAFEST 1994

By Kalamu ya Salaam

W.E.B. Du Bois:More Man Than Meets the Eye  /  Albert Murray on Ralph Ellison & the Aesthetics of Writing (Interview)

K’NAAN—T.I.A. (This Is Africa) /  Hugh Masekela—Coal Train Live /  Unomathemba /  Soweto Freedom Song / Eric Dolphy—God Bless the Child

Zuma abolishes six traditional South Africa monarchies—A six-year government study concluded that some had been created by the country’s former apartheid administration to divide the people. President Jacob Zuma said the move to halve the number of those recognised would correct “the wrongs of the past”. Zulu King Goodwill Zwelithini and Xhosa King Zwelonke Sigcau are among the seven who will remain in place. The other six monarchies would end when the incumbent ruler dies, Mr Zuma told reporters. The ruling will save the country money, as each king receives an annual subsidy . . . . Before South Africa’s first democratic elections in 1994, some of the royals were appointed by the government despite having few legitimate claims to the throne. . . . “It was how those in charge divided and disunited people” [Mr Zuma]. BBC                

photo right: King Goodwill Zwelithini

Mutabaruka: Reggae Sunsplash-1982 / it no good(to stay in a white man country too long /dispel the lie / Spirituality / Blacks In Amerika

Frantz Fanon Documentary—Black Skin, White Mask

Explores the life and work of the psychoanalytic theorist and activist Frantz Fanon who was born in Martinique, educated in Paris and worked in Algeria. Examines Fanon’s theories of identity and race, and traces his involvement in the anti-colonial struggle in Algeria and throughout the world.                                                                 

The Fact of Blackness (1952)  Black World and Fanon

Lessons and Warnings from South Sudan Notes from Bakie Bankie, Gaddafi, and Chinweizu

Angélique Kidjo Interview

Angélique Kidjo is a Grammy Award-winning Beninoise singer-songwriter and activist, noted for her diverse musical influences and creative music videos. Kidjo was born in Cotonou, Benin. Her father is from the Fon people of Ouidah and her mother from the Yoruba people. She grew up listening to Beninese traditional music, Miriam Makeba, James Brown, Otis Redding, Jimi Hendrix, Stevie Wonder, and Santana. By the time she was six, Kidjo was performing with her mother’s theatre troupe, giving her an early appreciation for traditional music and dance. She started singing in her school band Les Sphinx and found success as a teenager with her adaptation of Miriam Makeba‘s “Les Trois Z” which played on national radio. She recorded the album Pretty with the Cameroonian producer Ekambi Brilliant and her brother Oscar. It featured the songs Ninive, Gbe Agossi and a tribute to the singer Bella Bellow, one of her role models. The success of the album allowed her to tour all over West Africa. Wikipedia

Wole Soyinka and Cults Among Nigerian Youth  by Uche Nworah  / Black Egypt (video)

Son House: My Black Mama (1930) / Preachin’ Blues / Low Down Dirty Dog Blues /  Grinnin’ In Your Face / Downhearted Blues / Death Letter / Levee Camp Blues

Winnie Mandela accuses Nelson of ‘betraying’ the blacks of South Africa

“This name Mandela is an albatross around the necks of my family. You all must realise that [Nelson] Mandela was not the only man who suffered. There were many others, hundreds who languished in prison and died, Mrs [Winnie] Mandela said. [Nelson] Mandela did go to prison and he went in there as a young revolutionary but look what came out,’ she told the London Evening Standard. [Nelson] Mandela let us down. He agreed to a bad deal for the blacks. Economically we are still on the outside. The economy is very much ‘white’. “It has a few token blacks, but so many who gave their life in the struggle have died unrewarded. . . . ‘I cannot forgive him for going to receive the Nobel [Peace Prize in 1993] with his jailer [FW] de Klerk. Hand in hand they went. Do you think de Klerk released him from the goodness of his heart. . . . ‘He had to. The times dictated it, the world had changed, and our struggle was not a flash in the pan, it was bloody to say the least and we had given rivers of blood. I had kept it alive with every means at my disposal.” Mandela’s Way

Mrs [Winnie] Mandela was married for 38 years – although they were only together for five of these.  She also criticised the Truth and Reconciliation Committee – which she appeared before in 1997 – and implicated her for “gross violations of human rights. ‘Look at this Truth and Reconciliation charade. . . . What good does the truth do? How does it help to anyone to know where and how their loved ones are killed or buried?”  DailyMail

Simphiwe Dana—Ndiredi  / Ayo—“Help Is Coming” (Video) and “Life is Real” (video)

Adebayo Ogunlesi (born 1953) is a Nigerian businessman. A 1979 graduate of Harvard Law School and Harvard Business School, he also studied at Oxford. He was in charge of Global Investment Banking at Credit Suisse First Boston[ before being promoted to chief client officer and executive vice chairman. Wikipedia

Leadership without a Moral Purpose

A Critical Analysis of Nigerian Politics and Administration

(with emphasis on the Obasanjo Administration, 2003-2007)

By Victor E. Dike

Kalamu ya Salaam : Alabama   /  Clifford Brown: You Get Used to It  /  And Then They Laughed  /  Kalamu ya Salaam: A Primary Bibliography

Jimi Hendrix All Along The Watchtower /  Only a pawn in their game 1963  /  Steal Away—Reverend Pearly Brown / March on Washington  1963

Towards a Black Aesthetic

By Hoyt W. Fuller

Will Africa Let Sudan Off the Hook?—The expected issuance of an arrest warrant for President Omar Hassan al-Bashir of Sudan by the International Criminal Court tomorrow presents a stark choice for African leaders—are they on the side of justice or on the side of injustice? Are they on the side of the victim or the oppressor? The choice is clear but the answer so far from many African leaders has been shameful.

Because the victims in Sudan are African, African leaders should be the staunchest supporters of efforts to see perpetrators brought to account. Yet rather than stand by those who have suffered in Darfur, African leaders have so far rallied behind the man responsible for turning that corner of Africa into a graveyard. NYTimes

Court Issues Arrest Warrant for Sudan’s Leader— PARIS — Judges at the International Criminal Court ordered the arrest Wednesday of President Omar Hassan al-Bashir of Sudan for atrocities committed in Darfur, but Sudanese officials swiftly retaliated, ordering Western aid groups that provide for millions of people to shut down their operations and leave. After months of deliberation, the judges charged Mr. Bashir with war crimes and crimes against humanity for playing an “essential role” in the murder, rape, torture, pillage and displacement of large numbers of civilians in Darfur. But the judges did not charge him with genocide, as the prosecutor had requested.

In issuing the order, the three judges put aside diplomatic requests for more time for peace talks and fears that the warrant would incite a violent backlash in Sudan, where 2.5 million Darfur residents have been chased from their homes and 300,000 have died in a conflict pitting non-Arab rebel groups against the Arab-dominated government and its allied militias. NYTimes 5 March 2009

Lost Boys in Southern Sudan .  Blood, Ink, and Oil    What Can We Learn from Darfur?  Clinton and Obama on Darfur  /  Can Georgia Do Right?

The White Masters of the World

From The World and Africa, 1965

By W. E. B. Du Bois

W. E. B. Du Bois’ Arraignment and Indictment of White Civilization (Fletcher)

Profound Evil in the Congo

Perhaps we’ve heard so little about them because the crimes are so unspeakable, the evil so profound. For years now, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, marauding bands of soldiers and militias have been waging a war of rape and destruction against women.—Bob Herbert

The Greatest Silence: Rape in the Congo

Film Review by Kam Williams

HBO Exposé Sheds Light on African Country’s Violence against Women

Remembering Ahmed Sekou Touré as Guinea Turns 50 (Norman Otis Richmond)

Hottentot Venus: A Novel

By Barbara Chase-Riboud

Hottentot Venus is the story of Ssehura, a young Khoisan girl orphaned in 1700s South Africa. Ssehura is renamed Saartjie (which means “little Sarah” in Dutch) by a Dutch Afrikaner who becomes her master. As is Khoisan custom, Sarah is groomed to be more sexually desirable for marriage. Her buttocks are massaged with special ointments to make them swell and her genitalia are stretched to produce the legendary “Hottentot apron,” exaggerated folds of skin. Thus, Sarah is a physical curiosity and a sexual fetish to her white master. He is persuaded by an Englishman to send her to London where she becomes a sideshow sensation. The English gentry is fascinated by her exotic African ethnicity and sexually charged presence making her stuff of legend and myth. Sarah enters the world of circus freak shows and becomes a popular exhibit. .  The “Hottentot Venus,” as she has become known, is the rage of Europe. Yet, beyond the parade of curiosity seekers and perverts, the very real loneliness of this young woman comes through. CopperfieldReview

Fats Domino, Ray Charles, and Jerry Lee Lewis  /  The Holloway Series in Poetry – Amiri Baraka  / Bill Moyers and James Cone (Interview)

Guns, Butter, and Obama—While the “official” 2009 U.S. military budget is $516 billion, that figure bears little resemblance to what this country actually spends. According to CDI, if one pulls together all the various threads that make up the defense spending tapestry – including Home Security, secret “black budget” items, military-related programs outside of the Defense Department, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and such outlays as veterans’ benefits – the figure is around $862 billion for the current fiscal year. Johnson says spending is closer to $1.1 trillion. Even these figures are misleading, since it does not project future costs. According to Nobel Prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz, when the economic and social costs of the Iraq War are finally added up—including decades of treatment for veterans disabled by traumatic brain injury and post traumatic stress disorder—the final bill could reach $5 trillion. . . . A recent study by a Pentagon advisory group, the Defense Business Board, says that current defense spending is “not sustainable” and recommends scaling back or eliminating some big-ticket weapon systems. . . . While Obama has pledged to stress diplomacy over warfare, he has also promised to “maintain the most powerful military on the planet” and to increase the armed forces by some 90,000 soldiers. According to the Congressional Budget Office, that will cost at least $50 billion over five years. CommonDreams

U.S. Intelligence Warned ‘Genocide’ in Rwanda 

Clinton Administration Waited  to Use Word 

Rwanda Ten Years after   Rwanda Genocide Conference    The Struggle Odes  Ode #95

Tracy Chapman: Baby Can I Hold You Tonight  /  Talkin bout a revolution  / Give me one reason  / Crossroad / New Beginning

Commodores: Brick House / Jesus Is Love  /  Nightshift  /  Sail On  /  Easy  / Three times a lady / Machine Gun / Slippery When Wet

Dreams of Africa in Alabama

The Slave Ship Clotilda and the Story of the Last Africans Brought to America 

By Sylviane Anna Diouf

Sylviane Anna Diouf specializes in the social history of the Transatlantic Slave Trade and slavery, as well as contemporary African migrations. Her latest book, Dreams of Africa in Alabama: The Slave Ship Clotilda and the Story of the Last Africans Brought to America (Oxford University Press) won the 2007 Wesley-Logan Prize of the American Historical Association, the 2009 James F. Sulzby Award for best book on Alabama history from the Alabama Historical Association and was a finalist for the 2008 Hurston/Wright Legacy Award for non fiction. Servants of Allah: African Muslims Enslaved in the Americas (NYU Press) was named Outstanding Academic Book in 1999. Sylviane has lived in France, Senegal, Gabon, and Italy and now resides in New York City.

What credibility is there in Geneva’s all-white boycott?—What do the US, Canada, ­Australia, New Zealand, the Netherlands, Germany, Poland, Italy and Israel have in common? They are all either European or European-settler states. And they all decided to boycott this week’s UN ­conference against racism in Geneva – even before Monday’s incendiary speech by the Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad which triggered a further white-flight walkout by representatives of another 23 European states. In international forums, it’s almost unprecedented to have such an ­undiluted racial divide of whites-versus-the-rest. And for that to happen in a global meeting called to combat racial hatred doesn’t exactly augur well for future international understanding at a time when the worst economic crisis since the war is ramping up racism and xenophobia across the world. . . .The dispute was mainly about Israel and western fears that the conference would be used, like its torrid predecessor in Durban at the height of the Palestinian intifada in 2001, to denounce the Jewish state and attack the west over colonialism and the slave trade. Guardian

Exporting American Dreams: Thurgood Marshall’s African Journey (2008)

Thurgood Marshall became a living icon of civil rights when he argued Brown v. Board of Education before the Supreme Court in 1954. Six years later, he was at a crossroads. A rising generation of activists were making sit-ins and demonstrations rather than lawsuits the hallmark of the civil rights movement. What role, he wondered, could he now play?

When in 1960 Kenyan independence leaders asked him to help write their constitution, Marshall threw himself into their cause. Here was a new arena in which law might serve as the tool with which to forge a just society. In Exporting American Dreams: Thurgood Marshall’s African Journey (2008) Mary Dudziak recounts with poignancy and power the untold story of Marshall’s journey to Africa

Amilcar  Cabral Bio  /   The Quotable Cabral  /  Cabral Sketch  / Murder of Amilca Cabral (poem) /  Island (poem)

Chocolat (1989) An African film on Love & Racism  Starring: Isaach De Bankolé, Giulia Boschi  / Director: Claire Denis

Global News: Politics—Literature & the Arts

Africa and Afro-American Identity

Problems and Possibilities

By Everett E. Goodwin

The 10 Biggest Myths About Black History  The Black Experience in America is Unique  Folk Life in Black and White

Toussaint Table 

Dreams Buried in Freedom’s Coffin

Amnesty International on Haiti

John Henrik Clarke—A Great and Mighty Walk

This video chronicles the life and times of the noted African-American historian, scholar and Pan-African activist John Henrik Clarke (1915-1998). Both a biography of Clarke himself and an overview of 5,000 years of African history, the film offers a provocative look at the past through the eyes of a leading proponent of an Afrocentric view of history.

From ancient Egypt and Africa’s other great empires, Clarke moves through Mediterranean borrowings, the Atlantic slave trade, European colonization, the development of the Pan-African movement, and present-day African-American history.

Wilson J. Moses: A Time for Peace: A Time for War  /  Aquinas, Smith, Jefferson, Malthus, Marx, Keynes  /  Historiography and African Americans: Benjamin Quarles 

Troy Johnson founded in 1998 the African American Literature Book Club (AALBC) /   Responses to Barack Obama Winning   /  Wilson’s Obama Poem

Ban Firearms in South Africa  By Mpumelelo Toyise / Back from Rwanda  Tourism of Death (Spring Ulmer)

Global African Presence

Photos by Runoko Rashidi

Difficulties of Colonization  (Albert Schweitzer) /   Albert Schweitzer Receives No Negro Applause  /  Dr. Banda Grandfather of New African Politics

*   *   *   *   *

International Criminal Court Calls for the Arrest

Of Sudan’s President Omar al-Bashir for Genocide

      Blood, Ink, and Oil     President Omar al-Beshir     Restriction of Humanitarian Aid    

Genocide, slavery, rape, and colorism are wrong.—It is now less than a month since I was appointed National Chairwoman of the United States branch of South Sudan’s Sudanese Sensitization Peace Project (the SSPP).  This was a most ironic appointment considering the fact that I am a half-Arab Northerner, originally born Muslim, a “traitor” to the North.  I did spy work for the SPLA (South), and now, in my job rounding up celebrities and politicians to take a stance on behalf of Darfur and the 2011 secession of South Sudan, I find myself greatly pained that absolutely none of the African Presidents of the African Union are doing what they should to challenge and confront President Bashir’s regime in Khartoum, even as they acknowledge that he, and in full disclosure, my former boyfriend, Hasan al Turabi, are responsible for carrying out genocide. Millions of blacks around the world—whether their worlds be Johannesburg, Harlem, Dakar, London or Los Angeles—love to evoke the names “Nubia” and “Cush” to the point of overkill, yet as we get high linking ourselves to some glorious ancient past, we place little stock in fixing our present or constructing our future. Kola Boof  Nuba-Darfur-South Sudan Table

Slogan of Imperial Atrocity

The Lynching of Robert Mugabe: Critique of Empire, History and Memory! (Part 5)

By Emmanuel Franklyne Ogbunwezeh

  The Lynching of Robert Mugabe  (part 1)  Empires and Lynching (part 2)  Witnessing in Perilous Times (part 3) 

Kola Boof Speaks on Assassination of Deng Ajak  Diary of a Lost Girl

 Reparations for Darfur  /  Nuba-Darfur-South Sudan Table  /  South Africa and Darfur — Fact Sheet

When Does Ethnic Identity Turn into Racism /  In Search of Africans  /  Clinton or Obama: Who’s Best on Darfur? 

Modern Chinese Tanks for the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF)  /  Deng and Alek: Lovers Paradise Lost

My Master, My Husband     Bible Killers of Sudan    SUDAN: Purple Eye    Gone Dry  Every Little Bit Hurts  Christmas on the Nile

 What Can We Learn from Darfur?

Book Reviews by David Morse

Ethiopia: Peoples of the Omo Valley—Within the most remote part of Ethiopia, centuries from modernity, Hans Sylvester photographed for six years tribes where men, women, children and elders are true geniuses of ancestral art. At their feet the Omo River across a triangle of Ethiopia, Sudan and Kenya, the grand valley of the Rift that is slowly separating Africa.  It is a volcanic region providing an immense palette of pigments, ocher-red, white kaolin, copper-green, luminous yellow and ash-grey. They are painting geniuses and their six feet tall bodies are an immense canvas. The strength of their art can be defined in three words: their fingers, speed, and freedom. They draw with their open hands, their nails and fingertips, sometimes with a wooden stick, a reed, a smashed stalk. They draw with swift, rapid and spontaneous gestures beyond childlikeness, these essential movements that great contemporary masters are looking for when they have learned a lot and are trying to forget it all. The Omo merely want to decorate themselves, to seduce, be beautiful, have fun and endless pleasure.  Natural Fashion: Tribal Decoration from Africa  /  Online slideshow

Wild Life Returns En Masse to South Sudan by Ngor Arol Gerang

A group of African-Peruvian children . . . a Saturday morning in a recreation center just outside of Lima, Peru in late May or early June 2008.  Photos of Global African Presence

I told them about their African origins and a little about Africans in different parts of the world.  They liked the talk and they answered my questions and talked to me.  They all told me of the discrimination that they face everyday of their lives.  They told me about the racist taunting that they receive at school and in their neighborhoods.  They told me the racist names that other children call them.  I asked them about their dreams for life.  One of them told me that he wanted to be a doctor.  One told me that she really wanted to travel.  Another told me he really wanted to visit Africa.  It was all so touching.  And then I asked them if they regretted being African; if they wished that they were not Black?  One of them quickly responded in proud, defiant, and confident terms that for him it was quite the contrary.  This young African-Peruvian man-child told me that he thought that being Black was a gift from God.  The others quickly concurred.  Hearing this, I guess that you could say for me that the trip to Peru was complete.

In love of Africa, Brother Runoko http://www.cwo.com/~lucumi/runokol

Sudanese Moving North to Israel—Excessively harsh socio-economic conditions and racist attitudes in Egypt seem to be the main reason why Sudanese refugees want to relocate to Israel. Of the Sudanese refugees now resident in Israel 71 per cent report verbal and physical abuse as the main reason for their fleeing Egypt. Some 86 per cent had refugee status with the UNHCR in Egypt, though those crossing the border spent an average of six months in detention upon arrival in Israel. Others are subject to indefinite detention. Sudan is considered an enemy state by the Israelis and Sudanese refugees are viewed as suspect. This is especially the case with Muslim Sudanese from Darfur and northern Sudan. Southern Sudanese are culturally more attuned to Israeli culture, and Israelis warm up to them. “The Israelis are suspicious of us because we are Muslim,” complained a Sudanese originally from Darfur.  .  .  .

There are an estimated 400,000 Sudanese refugees in Kenya, 400,000 in Chad and 100,000 in Egypt. Yet on the UN human development index, Israel stands at 23, Egypt at 111 and Kenya at 152. Chad is among the world’s poorest and least developed nations and Sudan is not far behind. –Gamal Nkrumah. Sudanese refugees fleeing Egypt for Israel

Langston Hughes and Africa

By Harold R. Isaacs

Langston Hughes Table

Black Girl in Her Search for God      Tending One’s Own Garden  (Shaw)

In South Africa, Chinese is the New Black—A high court in South Africa ruled on Wednesday that Chinese-South Africans will be reclassified as “black,” a term that includes black Africans, Indians and others who were subject to discrimination under apartheid. As a result of this ruling, ethnically Chinese citizens will be able to benefit from government affirmative action policies aimed at undoing the effects of apartheid. In 2006, the Chinese Association of South Africa sued the government, claiming that its members were being discriminated against because they were being treated as whites and thus failed to qualify for business contracts and job promotions reserved for victims of apartheid. The association successfully argued that, since Chinese-South Africans had been treated unequally under apartheid, they should be reclassified in order to redress wrongs of the past. WSJ News

Jacob Zuma, President of the African National Congress, with Hu Jintao in Beijing last week (Reuters)

The Land Question in South Africa: The Challenge of Transformation and Redistribution—The editors, Lungisile Ntsebeza and Ruth Hall, have brought together a useful and interesting collection of papers presented at a 2004 conference in Cape Town about the land question in South Africa, a central and still highly controversial problem, as the divergent views within this book demonstrate. Readers of this volume will get both a sampling of some of the main analytical approaches to the land question as well as a sense of the direction in which the different positions lead, especially concerning the impasse of large-scale land redistribution and transformation of the rural economy in South Africa. . . . The content and scope of the discussion in this book as a whole manages for the most part to get beyond the state-market continuum that tends to dominate much of the debate today. The editors’ cautionary note about the dangers of a technicist approach evident at the 2005 National Land Summit is well taken, and they, along with several authors, stress that the resolution of the land question is essentially a political process. H-Net Reviews

I Am an African by Thabo Mbeki /  Steve Biko Speaks on Black Consciousness  / Bantu Stephen Biko  / Transitional Writings on Africa

Christian Missionaries in Phokeng

Excerpts from The Autobiography of an Unknown South African

By Naboth Mokgatle

Doctors Naboth Mokgatle, The Autobiography of an Unknown South African 

Steve Biko Speaks on Black Consciousness

Bantu Stephen Biko: A Profile  Where the White Man Can’t Win

South African Oppression and Poverty

Under Mbeki and Mandela—“Worse than Apartheid!”

Mfanelo Skwatsha (PAC) On Tour 

A Shattered Dream 

Nobody ever chose to be a slave by Thabo Mbeki & a Note from Ezili Dantò  Global News: Politics—Literature & the Arts

Apartheid dead but racism endures—Under apartheid, black education was purposely substandard and certain skilled jobs, notably in big corporations such as the railroad, were reserved for whites. Now white South Africans complain about government affirmative action programs that work against them. Yet despite these programs and a booming economy, more blacks are out of work than under white rule. Government statistics show that 10 percent of black households are in the top income bracket compared with 65 percent of white households. Blacks are 85 percent of the 48 million population. President Thabo Mbeki hoped business friendly policies would create a trickle-down effect, but they didn’t, and many blacks criticize Mbeki for leaving the reins of the economy in white hands. In 2004, in its most recent available figures, the Department of Trade and Industry said black ownership of businesses had gone from zero to 10 percent and blacks occupied 15 percent of skilled positions. Whites-only suburbs and restaurants have been desegregated, but few blacks can afford their prices. Most still live in black townships and work for whites as laborers, farm hands or domestic workers. Oakley-Smith says she can list scores of racist incidents — segregated toilets in big companies, rude and racist remarks by white supervisors in the mines, whites posting pictures of monkeys under the names of black supervisors.— Yahoo News

AIDS in Africa A Book of  Hope,Healing, Wisdom & Inspiration

The problem of the Africans in the 21st century is the problem of poverty, underdevelopment, and marginalisation. –Thabo Mbeki, 2003 

If way to the better there be, it exacts a full look at the worst. –Thomas Hardy

“Amandla”: A new voice from within the South African Left—A very unusual and exciting project was launched in South Africa this past June. Amandla www.amandla.org.za ), an on-line and hard-copy journal, emerged from within overlapping sections of the South African Left. At a point when the radical Left internationally desperately needs innovative theory, Amandla appeared on the scene as a means for the summation of the South African experience and a mechanism for badly needed debate within that significant movement. . . .Amandla is important for those of us in the USA both for giving us insight into the thinking within South Africa, as well as for, hopefully, inspiring us to do likewise in the USA. In terms of giving us insight into South Africa, the South African Left, regardless of any problems it faces, remains among the most vibrant on the planet. It is confronting issues of national and regional economic development in the face of imperialism, as well as attempting to address the challenge of building a pro-socialist movement in a post-liberation society. The latter is noteworthy for many reasons, not the least being that the South African Left often finds itself up against former comrades, individuals who know all the right words and phrases of the Left, but who use them to advance a different set of class interests. Bill Fletcher. Zmag

African Liberators of Nigeria

Alhaji Ahmadu, Obafemi Awolowo, Nnamdi Azikiwe

The Impact of the Internet on Journalism Practice in Nigeria   —  African Renaissance:  June/July 2004  Sept./Oct. 2004   Nov/Dec 2004  Jan/Feb 2005

Emmanuel Franklyne Ogbunwezeh

Nigeria A Failed State in the Making?   / The Inauguration of Illegitimacy 

 Scaffolds of Primitive Corruption   Roguery Incorporated

 Explaining the African Predicament

A Letter to Chinweizu and Rudy by Emmanuel Franklyne Ogbunwezeh

Pope John Paul II: A Life with a Mission  A Mission of Grace and Moral Strength by Rose Ure Mezu, Ph.D. The Man Called John Paul II (poem) 

   Rose Ure Mezu Index                  Chinua Achebe Introduction     Reading Rose Ure Mezu  Achebe Another Birthday in Exile

African Workers and Scholars Unite  (Bond)  /  Interview with Issaka K Souare    /   Poems by Godspower Oboido

LEON SULLIVAN: Summits and Opportunism by Omoyele Sowore

The Osu Caste Discrimination in Igboland

Impact on Igbo Culture and Civilization

By Victor Dike

Books by Victor E. Dike,   Democracy and Political Life in Nigeria  & The Osu Caste System in Igboland: A Challenge for Nigerian Democracy

An individual has to take a decision . . . take stock of himself and act—“The writer is first and foremost a citizen and the writer’s responsibility is not different from that of a citizen. . . . People sometimes take a snobbish attitude, saying we cannot engage on this level because it’s not pure enough for us. . . . On all levels humanity is involved. And wherever humanity is involved, that’s my constituency.”—Wole Soyinka, the 1986 Nobel literature prize winner—the first black writer to receive the award.

A Poet Engages the Head of a Nation

Dear President Obasanjo: Another LetterNiyi Osundare

Niyi Osundare At 60 (Ugochukwu)  /  Niyi Niyi Osundare (poem)  by Lee Meitzen Grue  /  PraiseSong for Niyi Osundare  (Mona Lisa Saloy)

 Osundare’s Universe of Burdens  The Poet’s Pen & Other Poems   by Niyi Juliad

Remembering Biafra: A Literary Review

By Chioma Oruh

Ojukwu Interview

Africa—Where the Next US Oil Wars Will Be—Most oil from Saudi Arabia and the Middle East winds up in Europe, Japan, China or India.  Increasingly it’s African oil that keeps the US running.  “West Africa alone sits atop 15% of the world’s oil, and by 2015 is projected to supply a up to a quarter of US domestic consumption.”  A foretaste of American plans for African people and resources in the new century can be seen in Eastern Nigeria.  US and multinational oil companies like Shell, BP, and Chevron, which once named a tanker after its board member Condoleezza Rice, have ruthlessly plundered the Niger delta for a generation.  Where once there were poor but self-sufficient people with rich farmland and fisheries, there is now an unfolding ecological collapse of horrifying dimensions in which the land, air and water are increasingly unable to sustain human life, but the region’s people have no place else to go. Twenty percent of Nigerian children die before the age of 5, according to the World Bank.  Hundreds of billions of dollars worth of oil have been extracted from the Niger Delta, according to Amnesty International in 2005.  But its inhabitants  “…remain among the most deprived oil communities in the world – 70 per cent live on less than US$1 a day. In spite of its windfall gains, as global oil prices have more than doubled in the last two years, the Nigerian government has failed to provide services, infrastructure or jobs in the region.” Black Agenda Report

Poems by Jumoke Verissimo:  Skirting around dustbin dreams  A note from my neighbourhood

Nigeria and White Supremacy

A Letter in Response to “Nigeria A Failed State in the Making?“

By Chinweizu

Reparations for Darfur   USAfrica: A Mortal Danger for Black Africans   Nuba-Darfur-South Sudan Table

Comparative Digests By Chinweizu: Racism: Arab and European Compared  /  Black Enslavement: Arab and European Compared

Reparations and the Pan-African War on Genocide  Letter from Chinweizu / Letters from Kola Boof / Reparations and the Pan-African War on Genocide

The Igbo and  Jewry  / Igbos:  A Lost Tribe of Israel?

By  Adeyinka Makinde

Can Greed Save Africa? Fearless investing is succeeding where aid often hasn’t 

Nigerian Elections 2007

 Chronicle of Shame and Deceit

 By S. Okechukwu Mezu

Some Brothers Do Have ‘Em   Oh Virtuous Matriarchs (A Tribute To African Women)  /  Boosting Brand Nigeria With the Golden Eaglets Win

A Tree Was Once an Embryo

Fiction by Onyeka Nwelue

Men in Suit? Give ’Em A Chance     Onyeka Nwelue Interviews Jude Dibia   The Train Journey (short story)  Interview with Onyeka Nwelue

Conversations with Anne Mordi A Driver in the Dark Tunnels of the London Underground By Uche Nworah

The Role of Traditional Rulers in an Emerging Democratic Nigeria

Fearing Forced Female Genital Mutilation Nigerian Pamela Enitan Izevbekhai Flees to Ireland with Daughters

Lumumba: A Biography (Robin McKown)

Letter to Pauline  Independence Day Speech (June 30, 1960)

Congo White King  Red Rubber, Black Death A Belgium King’s Sins Revealed in Film

 Tin Mining in the Congo War, Murder, Rape . . . All for Your Cell Phone

The Invisible War Democratic Republic of Congo—It’s the deadliest conflict since World War II. More than 5 million people have died in the past decade, yet it goes virtually unnoticed and unreported in the United States. The conflict is in the Democratic Republic of Congo, in Central Africa. At its heart are the natural resources found in Congo and multinational corporations that extract them. The prospects for peace have slightly improved: A peace accord was just signed in Congo’s eastern Kivu provinces. But without a comprehensive truth and reconciliation process for the entire country and a renegotiation of all mining contracts, the suffering will undoubtedly continue. In its latest Congo mortality report, the International Rescue Committee found that a stunning 5.4 million “excess deaths” have occurred in Congo since 1998. These are deaths beyond those that would normally occur. In other words, a loss of life on the scale of Sept. 11 occurring every two days, in a country whose population is one-sixth our own. Truthdig

The Significance of Pan Afrikanism in Present Day Namibia

Henny H. Seibeb, Bernadus C. Swartbooi and T. Elijah Ngurare

The Population Emergency—Sub-Saharan Africa has been experiencing phenomenal population growth since the beginning of the XXth Century, following several centuries of population stagnation attributable to the slave trade and colonization. The region’s population in fact increased from 100 million in 1900 to 770 million in 2005. The latest United Nations projections, published in March 2007, envisaged a figure of 1.5 to 2 billion inhabitants being reached between the present and 2050. . . .And although two-thirds of its population still live in rural areas, massive migration to the towns and cities is under way. Thus, whereas in 1960, just one city, Johannesburg, had a population of over one million, Africa now has about 40 of them. Science Daily

U.S.-Ethiopian Occupation of Somalia

Millions Displaced in “Worst Humanitarian Disaster”

By Glen Ford

The “War on Terror” and Africa’s Worst Humanitarian Crisis  (Sadia Ali Aden)

The Population Emergency—Sub-Saharan Africa has been experiencing phenomenal population growth since the beginning of the XXth Century, following several centuries of population stagnation attributable to the slave trade and colonization. The region’s population in fact increased from 100 million in 1900 to 770 million in 2005. The latest United Nations projections, published in March 2007, envisaged a figure of 1.5 to 2 billion inhabitants being reached between the present and 2050. . . .And although two-thirds of its population still live in rural areas, massive migration to the towns and cities is under way. Thus, whereas in 1960, just one city, Johannesburg, had a population of over one million, Africa now has about 40 of them. Science Daily

Showcasing Liberia’s Resources Through Fashion

Happy 160th Birthday

 George W Bush’s six-day tour of Africa—Johnson-Sirleaf is the ideal African leader as far as the Bush administration is concerned. Other preferred African leaders are Tanzanian president, Ghanaian President John Jufour and, of course, Beninois President Boni Yaye. The momentum behind the Americans in Africa is not what it was during the Cold War era. The war on terror, Africa’s potential as a major oil supplier to the US (currently 16 per cent of US oil imports), and AFRICOM are the superpower’s priorities in Africa today. The continent is no longer enemy turf, not even with Chinese competition for hydrocarbons and raw materials. There is also progress on the ground for champions of what is mistakenly called free trade, and there are no obvious socialists to be found. The botched handling of Africa’s underdevelopment concerns is America’s opportunity on the continent. Bush made smarmy speeches of little substance and even less consequence. Few understood what he was talking about, but most pretended that they did. Weekly Aahram

The End of An African Nightmare—Monrovia was in chaos as rebel groups shelled the city in an effort to oust Taylor. By that point the 14-year civil war had killed 270,000 people – an astonishing one out of every twelve Liberians – and forced another 250,000 to become refugees. The economy had completely collapsed, with GDP falling by more than 90 percent between 1989 and 1996, one of the largest collapses ever recorded anywhere in the world. Children as young as ten had become pawns in the violence, with warlords abducting them from their families, stuffing them with drugs and arming them with AK-47s (for a first-hand account from a former child soldier in neighboring Sierra Leone, read the riveting A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier by Ishmael Beah). But United Nations peacekeepers put an end to the conflict in 2003. Taylor first went into exile in Nigeria and is now in The Hague facing war crimes charges for atrocities committed in Sierra Leone. The U.N. and thousands of brave Liberians organized elections in late 2005 which resulted in President Sirleaf’s election. And she is resolutely moving the country forward by rebuilding institutions, restoring basic services, reviving the economy and beginning to heal the deep wounds of war.—Steve Radelet NYTimes Blog

My Grandma Rocks the Cradle and Rules the World

& Other Poems by Ellen Dunbar

Liberia:  I, Momolu or Liberia in the Bush   African President Addresses US Congress  After All the Flame   Deposing Charles Taylor  The Willis Knuckles Saga 

Remembering Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the Civil Rights Movement (Patricia Jabbeh Wesley)

Fathia Nkrumah  Profile by Gamal Nkrumah

Juneteenth and the Emancipation of Whom: Niggers or Enslaved Africans?  By Professor Gershom Williams

Market for Ni$$as  /  My New Orleans with Quo Vadis Gex  /      What Black Men Think (Film, 2007)  / Eluard A. Burt II Obituary    For Eluard on his Birthday

The Effects of Time and Place on the Nomads of Niger

By K.L. Barron

 Niger and the National Museum of Niger (Runoko Rashidi)

Cape Verde—We are pleased with what has been achieved, but our aspirations for a higher level of development are much greater, regardless of the opinion the rest of the world may have of us. At independence we had an illiteracy rate of nearly 70 percent, but today it is 24 percent. Life expectancy stood at 50 years, and now it is between 75 and 77 years. The infant mortality rate has fallen sharply and is now one of the lowest in Africa. The government (of the ruling African Party for the Independence of Cape Verde, PAICV) regards it as essential to respond to the expectations of Cape Verdeans by increasing the levels of education, training, health, safety and stability. In a word, more development is needed. While our people recognise the progress already made, they are not satisfied yet, and it is the dissatisfaction of Cape Verdeans and of the government itself that will propel us further. Cape Verde Foreign Minister Víctor Barbosa Borges

Kip’s Folly: A Black Commander for U.S. Forces in Africa

By Mark P. Fancher

 AFRICOM Plot Thickens  U.S. Push to Seize Control of Africa’s Gulf of Guinea Oil  / Say No to Africom–The Nation

 Ousmane Sembene, African cinema pioneer, dies  / Aboard the African Star By Alex Haley

President Omar al-Beshir Do You Know This Man? / Baltimore Slave Markets

Igbos in Virginia Enslaved Igbo and the Foundation of Afro-Virginia Slave Culture and Society  A review by Gloria Chuku

Igbo Ideograms In Virginia Cemeteries by Rachel Malcolm-Woods

Kalahari Bushmen—The San win ancestral land case By Alex Duval Smith

African Sisterhood

 By Peggy Brooks-Bertram

Wonderful Ethiopians of the Cushite Empire, Book II

Traditional Ghana

Richard Wright’s Seven Photos  in the 1950s from Natasha Gerson (Holland)

  Richard Wright (1908-1960) 

His Majesty The King of Asante

Otumfuo Osei Tutu IIFrom Ghana, Makes First Visit to Boston

Wednesday, November 2, 2005Museum of Fine Arts

What America Would Be Like Without Negroes by Ralph Ellison

Staying in Touch with Ghana

 By Bisi Adjapon

  The Funny Side of Racism

Ghanaian Writers: Rev. Addo: Ourselves in Africa  The Dignity of Vision   For Kwame Nkrumah   Ghana – A Year Ago  The African  Queen  African American Spiritualism  // Ablorh-Odjidja files: This WeekGhana     The Joseph Principle Enacted  A Critique of the book Out of America Disadvantaged by race, set back by language   —  The story peddled by imperial apologists is a poisonous fairytale   // Jean Y.T. Lukaz: Dark Tourism in Ghana

How a Black African Views His American Black Brothers  /  Origins Of African American Spiritualism 

Poems for Ghana by Rev P E Adotey Addo 

On The 49th Independence Celebration of The Republic Of Ghana March 4th 2006 

The Dignity of Vision   For Kwame Nkrumah   Ghana – A Year Ago    The African  Queen

Ourselves in Africa    African American Spiritualism  Books by Peter Addo    How a Black African Views His American Black Brothers 

The Sax Player At The Green Door    Origins Of African American Spiritualism  Some Things Never Change

Kalamu in Africa — Haile Gerima in Ghana  /  Criticisms of the Disapora  /  The Whole of Ourselves /  The Forts and Castles of Ghana   / What’s Your Name?  Once You’ve Been There / Foreign Exchange  / Transitional Writings on Africa  /  Myths About Black History  

Staying in Touch with Ghana   / Ashanti Chronology  /  The Ashanti Empire of West Africa  / Ghana – A Year Ago

Dark Tourism in Ghana: The Joseph Project

By Jean Y.T. Lukaz 

The African World

From Jo’Burg to Jozi: South Africa’s most prolific mass murderer takes another sip of coffee, eases back in his chair and pauses when asked if it is true he shot more than 100 black people. “I can’t argue with that,” says Louis van Schoor. “I never kept count.” “Apartheid killer finds religion but not remorse. Case of freed racist murderer highlights refusal of whites to take responsibility for the past.” By Rory Carroll in East London. The Guardian

Africa or America The Emphasis in Black Studies Programs by Marvin X and Nathan Hare

Islam Needs a Martin Luther by Marvin X  Marvin X Table   Emerge & See by Tony Medina    Mobutu and Zaire

Where Is the Love of All Things African?

By Jane Musoke-Nteyafas

Toronto, Canada

Poems & a Story by Jane Musoke-Nteyafas: WE BE BLACK PEOPLE  REMEMBER: CHEIKH ANTA DIOP  AFRO-DISIAC   FORBIDDEN FRUIT

Interview with Rudolph Lewis  / Kiini Ibura Salaam Tells All from Mexico (interview)

  (Black World, May 1973) — New Work by Imamu Amiri Baraka  Fanon and the Concept of Colonial Violence (Robert C. Smith)

 the visibility trigger/a poem for kwame nkrumah (Edward Brathwaite)

A Hip Hop Clothing Store   

Historical Context for Hip Hop Store in Malawi

A Response by Masauko Chipembere

DuBois Speaks to Africa  Delivered to the All-African Congress in 1958 Du Bois’ Letter to Yolande 1958   Bio-Sketch of PETER HENRY ABRAHAMS   Negro History and Culture  by Gunnar Myrdal   /

Rwanda: Odes for Rwanda  /  Clinton Administration Waited  to Use Word  /  Memorial Conference on United Nations  / Rwanda Ten Years after

Pieces of a Dream

By Mariahadessa Ekere Tallie

  Ekere Tallie’s Website  The African World

Invention of the White Race  

Theodore Allen begins Volume 1 by reviewing the many histories of American racism written in the 20th century. Dividing the arguments into the psycho-cultural school and the socio-economic school of thought, he teases out the strengths and flaws of their scholarship. Allen then posits racial oppression as a deliberate ruling-class decision (constantly undergoing renewal) to prevent property-less European Americans from allying themselves with enslaved and free African Americans by offering the European Americans privileges based on white skin. His solution is to study “racism” rather than “race” because studies of race always devolve onto discussions of the body–onto those who are perceived to possess race–and thus avoids the real issue. . . . It is a strong, well researched, tightly argued work. He proves that the “white race” can be “gotten on a technicality” because it was and is indeed an invented rather than a natural category. Amazon Reviewer

Remembering Malcolm

Appeal to African Heads of State

Speech by Malcolm X

Chairman, Organization of Afro-American Unity

Feb. 21, 2006–41 years ago Malcolm X was gunned down at the Audubon Ballroom in Harlem

An Exploited Mother By M. Quinn  / Or, Mama, Look, a Negro! No, He’s Civilized  / Pan-Africanism and the Black Church 

Garifuna community in Columbia: “We are pure Africans”— 150 million people of African descent live in Latin America and account for about one third of the total population. They reside mainly in rural areas, which are characterised by poor infrastructure, few schools and health facilities, low income and high unemployment. Afro descendants – as they are self-defined, account for 40 per cent of the poorest people in the region. Studies carried out by the Inter American Development Bank in 2001 found that in Brazil, the allocation of school places was determined by skin colour, which resulted in a large number of Afro descendants being denied access to education. Brazil has the largest number of Afro descendants in the whole of Latin America, which is estimated at 150 million – 20 million less than Nigeria, the most populous country on the African continent. (2006 Census). In Colombia, 98 per cent of the black population are without basic public utilities, compared with just 6 per cent of whites. These examples are representative of the experiences of Afro descendants throughout Latin America. Development initiatives funded by NGOs have little impact because the NGOs rarely work directly with Afro descendant organisations but through the same state channels who are instituting economic oppression and discrimination in the first place.Deborah Gabriel. Afro descendants in Latin America gearing up for reparations. Black Britain

Essays on African Identity

What Does It Mean to Be Black in the 21st Century (Senegal and Australia) by Danille K. Taylor

I Am Memory By Jerhretta Dafina Suite

A Seminarian’s Religious Journey to Ghana  by Jennifer McGill

The Forts and Castles of Ghana  by Kalamu ya Salaam

Remembering Chinwe & Teaching in Nigeria

by Larry Ukali Johnson-Redd

In Search of an African Identity by Rudolph Lewis

In Search Of Our Culture An American Travels to Marrakech by Cliff Chandler

Letters on Africa  Glory Days – Sahara Nights  By Ben Schwartz

African Renaissance May/June 2005

Tony Blair’s Commission for Africa Report

Another Gesture Politics?

Tony Blair, Fletcher Tembo, Waldron Giles, Mammo Muchie

Rajesh Makwana, Marcel Kitissou, Ann Talbot

Rose Ure Mezu‘s The Omnipresent Papacy: Pope John-Paul II on Feminism, the Youth, and Africa   www.adonis-abbey.com

June/July 2004 

Sept./Oct. 2004 

Nov./Dec 2004

 Jan/Feb 2005

www.adonis-abbey.com

Mosquitoes Fly Out My Head     Raining in This Terrible Land        A New Day Is Coming        Waiting for the Great Tragedy      A Sideshow in Your Mind  

 ]]>

 Nkrumah-Lumumba-Nyerere Index

African Liberators of Nigeria

African Slavery & World Christianity by Lamin Sanneh

Binyavanga Wainaina www.kwani.org

     Banning Chinua Achebe in Kenya  A Letter from Binyavanga Wainaina

     Kwani?  (www.kwani.org)

An Igbo Marriage  Mezu Table 

Kola Boof  

     Bio-Chronology of Kola’s Life  

     Bible Killers of Sudan

     Black Americans Campaign

     Boof Dismissed as Star

     Boof Speaks on Israeli Radio

     Boof Surrenders

     Christmas on the Nile 

     Every Little Bit Hurts

     Gone Dry

     A Hymn to Kola Boof by Rudolph Lewis

     Kola Boof Pissed with Belafonte  

     My Master, My Husband (Kola Boof)

     SUDAN: Purple Eye   

     To Be Invisible

     Who is Kola Boof?

Milton Allimadi

     The Hearts of Darkness

     Inventing Africa: New York Times

     Times Concocted ‘Darkest Africa’   

Lester Lewis

     Reporting South Africa 

     Reporting Zimbabwe

Mankekolo Mahlangu-Ngcobo

AIDS in Africa A Book  of  Hope, Healing, Wisdom & Inspiration

Remember Soweto 16 June 1974

African Revolutions

       By  Mukoma wa Ngugi

Her womb pressed against the desert to bear the parasite

that eats her insides like termites drill into dry wood. 

He is born into an empty bowl, fist choking umbilical cord. 

She dies sighing, child son at last.  He couldn’t have known,

instinct told him – always raise your arm in defense of your

own -Strike! Strike until they are all dead! Egg shells

in your hands milk bottle held between your toes,

you have been anointed twice, you strong enough to kill

at birth and survive.  You will want to name the world

after yourself but you will have no name- a collage of dead

roots, tongues and other things.  You will point your sword

to the center of the earth, duel the world to split into perfect

mirrors after your imperfect  mutations but you will be

too weak having latched your self onto too many streams

straddling too many continents, pulling patches of a self

as one does fruits from an from an orchard, building a home

of planks with many faces. How does one look into a mirror

with a face that washes clean every rainy season? 

He has an identity for every occasion – here he is Lenin

 there Jesus and yesterday Marx – inflexible truths inherited

without roots.  To be nothing to remain nothing, to kill

at birth – such love can only drink from our wrists.  We

storming from our past to Jo’Burg eating wisdom of others

building homes made of our grandparent’s bones.  We

gathering momentum that eats out of our earth, We standing

pens and bullets hurled at you, your enemies.  Comrade, there

are many ways to die. A dog dies never having known

why it lived but a free death belongs to a life lived in roots,

roots not afraid of growing where they stand, roots tapped all over

the earth. Comrade, for a tree to grow, it must first own its earth.

Source: Zeleza

Mezu Table

An Igbo Marriage 

Preface to Religion & Society

Women in Chains (1994) Contents 

My Plans to Satisfy Nigerians  by Paul Odili

Patricia Jabbeh Wesley

     “After All the Flame” by Randy Wells

     Becoming Ebony  

     In the Beginning  

     Monrovia Women

     Surrender

     This is What I Tell My Daughter   

Peter Eric Adotey Addo

     The African Queen   

     Books by Peter Addo

     The Dignity of Vision

     For Kwame Nkrumah

     Ghana – A Year Ago 

     How a Black African Views His American Black Brothers 

     Origins Of African American Spiritualism

Peter H. Abrahams

     Abrahams Bio to 1957 

     Kwame Nkrumah, Kenyatta, and the Old Order  

Rwandan Genocide

      Clinton Administration Waited

     Ode #95

     Rwanda Ten Years after the Genocide

     The Struggle Odes

     Memorial Conference on United Nations 

Saartjie Baartman

     Exhibiting Others in West

     Hottentot Venus  

     Letter from the President

     Sara Story  

Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem

     Deposing Charles Taylor 

     Nigeria: The “Greatest Nation”?  

*   *   *   *   *

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