Image Ownership: Public domain French naval hero Camille Mortenol was born November 29, 1859 in Pointe-à-Pitre, the largest city in the French island colony of Guadeloupe in the Caribbean Sea, the son of former slave André Mortenol, a sailor, and his wife, Julienne Toussaint, a … Read MoreCamille Sosthène Héliodore Mortenol (1859-1930)
“Image Ownership: Public Domain” Leopoldine Emma Doualla-Bell Smith is the world’s first black flight attendant. Smith was born in Cameroon which, at the time, France controlled. Smith was a princess of the royal Douala family of Cameroon. She was offered a rare after-school employment opportunity … Read MoreLeopoldine Emma Doualla Bell Smith (1939– )
“Image Ownership: Public Domain” Clothing entrepreneur Malamine Koné, was born in Mali on December 21, 1971, but now lives near Paris, France. He is most famous for creating the sport-clothing brand Airness in 1999. Fifteen years later, the clothing line is one of the most … Read MoreMalamine Koné (1971– )
In 2014, Cynthia Akuetteh, career Senior Foreign Service officer, was nominated by President Barack Obama to serve as ambassador to Gabon and the island nation of Sao Tomé & Principe. After U.S. Senate confirmation she arrived in Libreville, capital of Gabon, to take up her … Read MoreCynthia Helen Akuetteh (1948- )
Ambassador Irvin Hicks Giving A Lecture in Bujumbaru, Burundi “Image Ownership: Public Domain” Irvin Hicks was a career Foreign Service Officer who rose from a communications clerk position to serve three times as a U.S. ambassador. Hicks served in the Department of State during the … Read MoreIrvin Hicks (1938- )
Eunice S. Reddick, an American diplomat and United States Ambassador to the Republic of Niger, was born in 1951 in New York City, New York. Reddick received her Master’s degree in International Affairs from Columbia University’s School of International Affairs in 1975 and then worked … Read MoreEunice S. Reddick (1951- )
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
Libreville is the largest city and capital of Gabon, a small country on the western coast of Africa. In 2005 its population was 578,156. It is a tropical city that has a port on the Komo River. The city is the trading center for the … Read MoreLibreville, Gabon (1848- )
Omar Bongo was President of Gabon from 1967 until his death in 2009, over 42 years, and thus ruled longer than any other African leader. Bongo was born in the Beteke region of Gabon on December 10, 1935. He was the youngest of twelve children … Read MoreOmar/ Albert-Bernard Bongo (1935-2009)
Warrior king, empire builder and hero of the resistance against the French colonization of West Africa during the 19th century, Samori Touré was born around 1830 in the Milo River Valley in present-day Guinea. His father was a trader, leading Touré to follow his family’s … Read MoreSamori Touré (1830-1900)
