Ellis (Eli) Reed is a professor, author, and photographer. He is the first African American selected as a full member into the Magnum Photos agency, the elite international photojournalist collective. Having been published in close to 30 magazines, Reed is best known for his three … Read MoreEllis Reed (Eli) (1946- )
Elmer “Geronimo” Pratt was a high ranking Black Panther Party (BPP) leader in Los Angeles who was targeted by the United States federal government’s domestic surveillance COINTELPRO program. He was accused and convicted of a murder and spent twenty-seven years in prison but the conviction … Read MoreGeronimo Pratt (1947-2011)
The Republic of New Africa (RNA) is a black nationalist organization that was created in 1969 on the premise that an independent black republic should be created out of the southern United States of South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana, which were considered “subjugated … Read MoreRepublic of New Africa (1968- )
Mombasa, located in southeastern Kenya on the Indian Ocean, is the second largest city in the country and the nation’s major seaport. The city, which is located on an island separated from the mainland by Tudor Creek and Kilindini Harbor, had a population of 939,370 … Read MoreMombasa, Kenya (ca. 900 A.D.- )
Dar es Salaam is the largest city in Tanzania. With its location on the Indian Ocean coast, separated from the island of Zanzibar by the Zanzibar Channel, it is also the manufacturing and commercial center of the nation. The city began as a fishing village … Read MoreDar es Salaam (1857- )
Anne Wortham, a prolific academic who has opposed aspects of the traditional civil rights movement, was born on November 26th 1941 in Jackson, Tennessee. The first of five children, she was raised in the segregated South where her parents instilled in her religious beliefs and … Read MoreAnne Wortham (1941- )
Yelena Khanga is a journalist and writer who was born in 1962 in Moscow, Russia. She is the daughter of Abdulla Khanga, who was the onetime vice president of Zanzibar, and Lily Golden, a Russian woman who was a historian and educator. She was also … Read MoreYelena Khanga (1962- )
When Great Zimbabwe began its economic and military decline in the late 1400s, some of the city’s elites migrated 200 miles north to the Zambezi River and established the short-lived Shona state of Monomotapa (Mutapa). The state emerged around 1500 under Nyatsimba Mutota, the first … Read MoreMonomutapa (ca. 1450-1917)
Site of some of the oldest hominid fossils, The Great Rift Valley in East Africa refers to a massive land depression, formed approximately twenty million years ago when two parallel fault lines pulled apart. The rift stretches along East Africa from the Jordan River Valley in southwest … Read MoreRift Valley in East Africa
From approximately 1000 to 1500 AD, a number of city-states on the eastern coast of Africa participated in an international trade network and became cosmopolitan Islamic cultural centers. The major autonomous, but symbiotic, city-states stretched over 1,500 miles from Mogadishu (in modern day Somalia) in … Read MoreEast African City States (1000-1500)
