The Horn of Africa (HoA) is the African continent’s easternmost peninsula. The English name for the region derives from the horn-shaped land formation of the easternmost point of the African continent. The peninsula stretches hundreds of kilometers into the Gulf of Aden, Somali Sea, and … Read MoreThe Horn of Africa
In 1969, Sa’adia Marciano and Charlie Biton—along with four other Moroccan-Jewish youth living in the poor Moroccan-Jewish section of Jerusalem, Israel—started meeting to discuss North African Jews’ experiences of joblessness, police beatings, housing and education discrimination, and exclusion from government political offices and positions. When they read … Read MoreIsraeli Black Panther Party (1971-1977)
Ilhan Omar is a Somali American politician from Minnesota. She is the director of policy and initiative of the Women Organizing Women Network, which encourages women from East Africa to take on civic and political leadership roles. In 2016, she was elected a Democratic-Farmer-Labor (DFL) … Read MoreIlhan Omar (1982- )
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)
In 1977 Ethiopia and Somalia engaged in a brief territory conflict over the Ogaden region situated between and claimed by both nations. This conflict however held significance greater than most territorial disputes because Ethiopia was backed by the Soviet Union and Somalia was supported by … Read MoreEthiopian-Somali War Over the Ogaden Region (1977–1978)
In the article below, Syracuse University historian Herbert Ruffin explores the rapid rise of the Black Lives Matter Movement in 2013 as the most recent development in the ongoing struggle for racial and social justice in the United States. In the summer of 2013, three … Read MoreBlack Lives Matter: The Growth of a New Social Justice Movement
Marguerita Dianne Ragsdale was born in April 1948 in Richmond, Virginia to Lillie and Vernon Ragsdale and raised alongside her five sisters on a farm in McKenney, Dinwiddie County, Virginia. After starting her undergraduate work at Virginia State University in Petersburg, she transferred to American … Read MoreMarguerita Ragsdale (1948- )
When Ellen Johnson Sirleaf was inaugurated the 24th president of the Republic of Liberia on January 16, 2006, she became Africa’s first democratically elected female head of state. Her election reflected the hope and belief that African nations could embrace participatory democracy. Ellen Euphemia Johnson … Read MoreEllen Johnson Sirleaf (1938- )
Malik Ambar was among the tens of thousands of men, women, and children captured in Africa and sold into slavery in the Middle East and India over nearly nine centuries. His story is also an indication of the ability of some in the predominantly Muslim … Read MoreMalik Ambar (1548 -1627)
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.- )
