Maria Mambo Café was an Angolan economist and politician. She was a career member of the Movimento Popular de Libertação de Angola – Partido do Trabalho. Café was born in 1945 in Cabinda Province, an exclave of Angola in the northern part of the country. … Read MoreMaria Mambo Café (1945-2013)
José Carlos Lamartine Salvador dos Santos Costa is an Angolan musician, diplomat, and statesman who played an essential role in shaping contemporary music in Angola. Lamartine was born in the city of Benguela in 1943. At age ten, Carlos moved with his father and two … Read MoreCarlos Lamartine (1943- )
The current president of Angola, Joao Manuel Goncalves Lourenço, was born on March 5, 1964, in Lobito, Angola. His parents were Sequeria Joao Lourenço, a nurse, and Josefina Goncalves Cipriano, a seamstress. Angola was a Portuguese colony and his father was an Angolan nationalist who … Read MoreJoao Lourenço (1964- )
Antonio Agostinho Neto, fondly honored by Angolans as the “Father of Modern Angola” served as the first president of independent Angola. Not only was he a remarkable politician, but Neto was also a noted physician and famous poet. Antonio Agostinho Neto was born on September … Read MoreAgostinho Neto (1922-1979)
Négritude cinema director, activist, feminist Sarah Maldoror was born Sarah Ducados on July 19, 1929, in Condom, France, of emigrant parents from the Francophone Caribbean Island of Guadeloupe. She later selected her name after the hero of the Comte de Lautréamont’s novel Les Chants de … Read MoreSarah Maldoror (1929-2020)
The first Black settlers in what is now the western United States were Spanish speakers who came north from what is now central Mexico. Their roots there began in 1519, when Black men were among the Spanish conquistadores who invaded and destroyed the Aztec Empire, … Read MoreNorth from Mexico: The First Black Settlers in the U.S. West
In 1619, 12 years after the first permanent English colony was established at Jamestown, Virginia, a small cargo of enslaved Africans arrived at the colony at Comfort Point near present-day Hampton, Virginia. Until recently, historians had misconstrued the circumstances of how this human cargo came … Read MoreFirst Africans in the Jamestown Colony (1619)
Few people realize that the percentage of people of African ancestry in the South American nation of Colombia (7%) is slightly more than half the percentage of people of African ancestry in the United States (13%). Yet we know even less about the origins of … Read MoreLadinos and Bozales: A Brief Early History of Africans in Colombia: 1500-1800
Inarguably, one of the leading figures in African and African American history is Dr. James Emmanuel Kwegyir Aggrey, known as “Aggrey of Africa.” Not only can Africa claim him, but also the African Diaspora. Aggrey was born on October 18, 1875, at Anomabo in the … Read MoreJames Emmanuel Kwegyir Aggrey (1875-1927)
Francisca Van Dunem (née Francisca Eugénia da Silva Dias Van Dunem), an attorney and politician, became the first person of African-descent to serve as a cabinet minister in Portugal. Born on November 5, 1955 in Luanda, Angola, Van Dunem was one of six children born … Read MoreFrancisca Van Dunem (1955- )
