Sankore Mosque and University is the oldest continuously-operating institution of higher education in Sub-Saharan Africa. It is believed that the mosque and university were erected in the 1100s C.E. (Twelfth Century) by Berbers who settled in the Timbuktu region of modern-day Mali. Mansa Musa I, … Read MoreSankore Mosque and University (c. 1100- )
Bilal ibn Rabah al-Habashi was a loyal Sahabah (companion) to the Prophet Muhammad and thus one of the earliest converts in the newly-emerging religion of Islam. He was also the first mu’azzin (prayer caller) in the Muslim faith. Rabah is the first person of known … Read MoreBilal ibn Rabah al-Habashi (580-640)
Sundiata (Sunjata) Keita was a West African political leader who would become the founder and first ruler of the Mali Empire in medieval West Africa. He founded the empire circa 1235 CE and ruled until his death in circa 1255 CE. The Mali empire was prosperous under his rule. Sundiata … Read MoreSundiata Keita (1210?-1255?)
Lieutenant General Larry R. Jordan is a former Army officer, former Senior Vice President of Burdeshaw Associates, Ltd., and current Principal of LNJ Group, LLC. Jordan served for 35 years as member of the U.S. Army, completing two active combat tours in Vietnam and Operation Desert Storm(Iraq). Jordan ended his … Read MoreLarry R. Jordan (1946- )
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
Image Ownership: Public domain Yahya Jammeh is a Gambian politician and former military officer who was the second president of Gambia from 1994 to 2017. Jammeh ruled Gambia for 23 years after rising to power as a young army officer in a bloodless military coup … Read MoreYahya Abdul-Aziz Jemus Junking Jammeh (1965- )
In three covert military operations, called Moses, Joshua, and Solomon, over twenty thousand Ethiopian Jews were airlifted to Israel to escape hardship. This ancient community, called Beta Israel (House of Israel in English), lived in relative isolation from the rest of the Jewish world for … Read MoreOperations Moses, Joshua, and Solomon (1984-1991)
Mohammed Ali “Nicholas” Said, an enslaved African from Bornu in what is now northeastern Nigeria, traveled through Europe to the United States. He was born in Kouka, Bornu, the thirteenth of nineteen children to Barca Gana and his wife, Dalia, in 1836. His father was … Read MoreMohammed Ali “Nicholas” Said (1836-1882)
The island of Zanzibar, now a part of Tanzania, was a nineteenth century East African trading empire that fell under the domination of the British who controlled it until the mid-twentieth century. Zanzibar is the leading producer of cloves in the world, which earned it … Read MoreSultanate of Zanzibar (1856–1964)
“Image Ownership: Public Domain” Jenean Hampton, at the age of fifty-eight, became the first statewide, black, elected official in Kentucky’s history when she was elected lieutenant governor on November 3, 2015. Hampton ran on the Republican Party ticket headed by GOP gubernatorial candidate Matt Bevin … Read MoreJenean Hampton (1958– )
