Andree Madeleine Blouin, one of an emerging group of African activists and political leaders in the 1960s, was born in Bessou in the French Colony of Ubangi-Shari (today’s Central African Republic) on December 16, 1921. Her mother, Josephine Wouassemba, was a 14 year old Banzi … Read MoreAndree Blouin (1921-1986)
Brahim Ghali is a Sahrawi politician and military officer who serves as the current president of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR) and former SADR ambassador to Algeria and Spain. The Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic was formerly known as the Western Sahara and Spanish Sahara. … Read MoreBrahim Ghali
(1949- )
The long-serving president of the Republic of Congo (Congo-Brazzaville), Denis Sassou-Nguesso was born on November 23, 1943, in Edou. His parents were Julien Nguesso, a noted hunter-chief, and Emilienne Mouebara. Denis Sassou-Nguesso attended elementary school in Owando and was also initiated in the Mbochi tribal … Read MoreDenis Sassou-Nguesso (1943- )
The current president of Algeria is Abdelmadjid Tebboune who was born on November 17, 1945 in Mecheria, Algeria. His father was a sheikh and soldier. As a young man, Tebboune studied in an Islamic school controlled by the Association of Ulema in Sidi Bel Abbes. … Read MoreAbdelmadjid Tebboune (1945- )
Ahmed Ben Bella was a leader of the Algerian War of Independence who became the first Prime Minister, and later, the first President of independent Algeria. Ben Bella was born in 1916 in Maghnia (Marnia), Oran, Algeria (then a French colony), the son of a … Read MoreAhmed Ben Bella (1916-2012)
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)
Kathleen Neal Cleaver emerged in the late 1960s as one of the most influential leaders of the Black Panther Party (BPP). Neal was born in Memphis, Texas on May 13, 1945. Her father Ernest Neal was a sociology professor at Wiley College. Her mother, Juette (Johnson) Neal, earned a … Read MoreKathleen Neal Cleaver (1945- )
In the article below independent historian Kyle Haddad-Fonda describes the Asian-African Conference popularly known as the Bandung Conference which was the first significant gathering of independent and soon-to-be independent nations in Asia and Africa. From April 18 to April 24, 1955, delegates from twenty-nine countries … Read MoreThe Asian-African (Bandung) Conference: Fact and Fiction
Zhou Enlai’s first tour of Africa, popularly known as Zhou’s “Safari,” was a series of state visits to ten independent African countries, undertaken between December 1963 and February 1964 by the Chinese Premier. These visits, which occurred during a period when many countries were gaining … Read MoreZhou Enlai’s African “Safari” (1963-1964)
The Almoravids, or al-Murabitun as they called themselves, were an Islamic Berber dynasty that established an empire in Morocco and eventually took it over a wide region of Northwest Africa including modern Morocco, Western Sahara, Mauritania, and part of Algeria. The emprire stretched as far south … Read MoreThe Almoravids/al-Murabitun (1040–1147)
