Global African HistoryPerspectives

Perspectives on Global African History features accounts and descriptions of important but little known events in Global African history recalled often by those who were witnesses or participants or viewpoints about historical developments shaping the contemporary black world. Many of these accounts will be instant primary sources available to current visitors to BlackPast and to future historians. Each article is accompanied by a brief biography and photo of its author.

African Cowboys on the Argentine Pampas: Their Disappearance from the Historical Record

Following the introduction of cattle into the Caribbean in 1493, during Christopher Columbus’s second voyage, cattle ranching proliferated along a series of frontiers across the grasslands of North and South America. While historians have recognized that Africans and their descendants were involved in the establishment … Read MoreAfrican Cowboys on the Argentine Pampas: Their Disappearance from the Historical Record

Patient Zero: Thomas Eric Duncan and the Ebola Crisis in West Africa and the United States

In the following article Dr. Clarence Spigner, Professor of Public Health at the University of Washington, Seattle, describes the life of the first patient to die of Ebola on U.S. soil and the larger crisis of Ebola in West Africa.  He views it as a … Read MorePatient Zero: Thomas Eric Duncan and the Ebola Crisis in West Africa and the United States

Greece and Egypt: How a Single Coin Reflects an Ancient and Enduring Relationship

In the following article Mediterranean Antiquities historians Carol Thomas and David Coblentz, use an African-headed Greek coin to explore the little known yet often controversially debated historical relationship between Ancient Greece and Egypt and by extension, the larger connections between Africa and Europe.  Their article … Read MoreGreece and Egypt: How a Single Coin Reflects an Ancient and Enduring Relationship

The TransPacific Struggle over Citizenship: Seeking Welfare Rights in Kawasaki City, Japan and Los Angeles, California,1962-1982

“Image Ownership: Public Domain” Historians rarely compare the mostly working-class and poor Korean population in Japan and African Americans seeking economic justice in the United States. Japanese scholar Kazuyo Tsuchiya of Kanagawa University takes on that task in her new book, Reinventing Citizenship: Black Los … Read MoreThe TransPacific Struggle over Citizenship: Seeking Welfare Rights in Kawasaki City, Japan and Los Angeles, California,1962-1982

I Remember Madiba: Paul Suzman Eulogizes Nelson Mandela

In the wake of Nelson Mandela’s passing on December 5, 2013, tributes came forth from around the world and more than 100 heads of state attended his memorial service in South Africa.  One such tribute, a eulogy to Madiba (his clan name), was paid at … Read MoreI Remember Madiba: Paul Suzman Eulogizes Nelson Mandela

The African American Experience in Italy, 1852 to 2013

In the following article longtime BlackPast.org contributor and San Diego State University Librarian Robert Fikes discusses African American emigrants to and visitors in Italy. Since the 1850s, African Americans have gone to Italy as tourists, students, soldiers, writers, musicians, opera singers, social activists, and actors.  … Read MoreThe African American Experience in Italy, 1852 to 2013

Africans, African Americans, Great Britain and the United States: The Curious History of the Rio Pongo in the Early 19th Century

In the essay below, Bruce L. Mouser, Emeritus Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse, describes the conflicting goals of African Creoles, African Americans, and British and American colonizationists in the fate of the Rio Pongo Valley along the West Coast of Africa.  … Read MoreAfricans, African Americans, Great Britain and the United States: The Curious History of the Rio Pongo in the Early 19th Century

Russia’s Black Entertainment Empresario: The Remarkable Saga of Fyodor Fyodorovich Tomas (Frederick Bruce Thomas)

Yale University literature scholar and historian Vladimir Alexandrov introduces The Black Russian— his new biography of a forgotten African American who led an extraordinary life in Russia and Turkey at the beginning of the twentieth century. The story of this book began six years ago, … Read MoreRussia’s Black Entertainment Empresario: The Remarkable Saga of Fyodor Fyodorovich Tomas (Frederick Bruce Thomas)

Samuel Coleridge-Taylor: For His Times and Ours

  Image Ownership: Public Domain In the article below Hilary Burrage, Executive Chair of the Samuel Coleridge-Taylor Foundation, a United Kingdom (UK)-based non-profit organisation, describes the composer and how she came to regard and preserve his work and legacy. It has taken three times the … Read MoreSamuel Coleridge-Taylor: For His Times and Ours

Jazz in Occupied China: Black Jazzmen at the Japanese Prison Camp in Weihsien, China during World War II

Desmond Power, a third generation British subject born in Tientsin (now Tianjin), China in 1923, was incarcerated along with 1,500 other foreign nationals in 1943 in Weihsien, a Japanese Prisoner of War camp in North China during World War II.  In the article below, Power … Read MoreJazz in Occupied China: Black Jazzmen at the Japanese Prison Camp in Weihsien, China during World War II