National heroine and revered freedom fighter Juana Ramírez, popularly known as “La Avanzadora” (The Advancer), was born January 12, 1790 in Chaguaramal, Monagas State, Venezuela. Her enslaved African mother, Guadalupe, was purchased by her putative father, Spanish army general Andrés Rojas. As a child she … Read MoreJuana Ramírez (1790 -1856)
Michael de Frietas, later known as Michael Abdul Malik and Michael X, was a controversial black revolutionary figure born in Port-au-Spain, Trinidad in 1933. He was mixed-race. Iona Brown, his mother, was working-class and a known African spiritualist in their community in Trinidad. His estranged father, Emmanuel de Frietas, was Portuguese and … Read MoreMichael X (1933-1975)
Foday Saybana Sankoh was the founder and leader of the Sierra Leone rebel group, Revolutionary United Front (RUF), during the Sierra Leone Civil War (1991–2002). That conflict, the first civil war in the nation’s history, resulted in the death of an estimated fifty thousand people … Read MoreFoday Saybana Sankoh (1937–2003)
