News — africa

Joseph has spent 15 years in primary 1. Teachers say it is impossible for him to graduate because he always comes last. His teachers claim he forgets everything immediately he's taught.  Joseph states that when he is in class, he gets dream-like hallucinations which make him forget everything. His classmates from previous years have graduated, and others even become his teachers, yet he is still in the same class. Due to his dwarfism, you might not realize he's 21 years old. Joseph is still optimistic about graduating one day and becoming a president. The sad part is the bullies call him "Old Man" so much that he can literally remember it. He deserves more respect. What do you think?

Joshua Maponga is at a cross roads. After 33 years in Christian ministry, he has found himself in a place where he can't find satisfying answers to his questions. His questions stem from a life of dedication to his calling but some things remain a history. He says God gave us brains to think and questions are a sign of a functioning brain. On this interview, he tries to explain where he stands with the Bible. Maponga feels strongly about Africa and says in his understanding, Africa plays a significant role in the Bible and prophecy, but because of how the gospel was presented by the Europeans, these African related truths are neglected. He is calling on Africa to embrace its humanity and the knowledge available to emancipate itself from the spiritual poverty it is facing. What do you think about his point of view?

Kamiyah Mobley, a 19-year-old who was kidnapped at birth and raised by her kidnapper, Alexis. She was taken from her biological parents 8 hours after birth. It is so sad that a woman Kamiyah saw as a hero was the villain who destroyed Kamiyah's biological parents' lives. Kamiyah is very protective of Alexis, despite finding out the truth. The biggest pain that no one is really talking about is that Kamaya has to bury Alexis to exist. Today, with her abductor in jail, Kamiyah is left without a true identity or a mother to call her own. What do you think of Kamiyah's situation?

Sudan is one of the world's last frontiers. Once thought of as a vast desert l and was, the land was home to an advanced and mysterious civilization, an ancient kingdom of Africa known as Kush. The kingdom dealt with Pharaohs from Egypt and the emperor's from Rome. Their Nubian leaders known as Black Pharaohs left behind an array of archeological sites dotted along the Nile and the count of Egypt. The Black Pharaohs controlled the trade routes connecting central Africa with ancient Egypt; this accumulated them with immense wealth and power. Do you think Egypt's culture and influence are credited to the Black Pharaohs of Kush?

Keon Wiggins was raised by his step-father, Donzell Powell. In an emotional speech, Keon asked Donzell to adopt him as a Father's Day gift. The video was recorded by his little sister in his home on Father's Day while his mother, Keona Powell, was present along with some other family members. As both get quite emotional, Donzell says yes! These are the kind of stories that we need to see more often on media of strong, loving black families. This is what the black community needs, positivity, and parental figures who step up. What do you think?

Vernon African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church is located at 311 North Greenwood Avenue in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Vernon is the only remaining edifice from the worst race massacre in American history in 1921 and the only black-owned structure from the Historic Black Wall Street era. It is also the oldest continuously-operating church in Oklahoma.

Vernon AME started in a one-room house located at 549 North Detroit Street in 1905 when African Methodism first arrived in Tulsa, which was then part of Indian Territory. Reverend J. E. Roy was the first pastor, followed by Reverend R. A. Devers in 1906. By that point worshippers met at Gurley Hall at 114 North Greenwood Avenue. The congregation grew from 8 to 16 members soon after and they moved to Barksdale Hall on East Archer. The congregation began its first building project at Hartford and Archer streets during Rev. Devers one-year tenure. The building project resulted in the construction of a small frame house which was completed under Reverend G. H. Burton and renamed Burton Chapel by the 71-member congregation in 1907.

The present site of Vernon was purchased in 1908 for the sum of $290.00, with a down payment of $100.00 made by the trustees. Voting to change the church’s name from Burton Chapel to Vernon AME Church in honor of Registrar of the Treasury, W. T. Vernon, who was appointed by President Theodore Roosevelt in 1906. Additional land was purchased and by 1914 the old church structure was torn down and a new brick basement for a new church was constructed. However, the Tulsa Race Massacre on June 1, 1921 left black-owned homes, schools, and businesses destroyed and the new Vernon brick basement in ruins.

Vernon AME rapidly rebuilt after the Massacre. Immediately after the destruction of Greenwood Avenue and Black Wall Street, the Vernon congregation began growing a building fund of $1,100.00 to rebuild the structure. During that time, its membership doubled from 200 congregants to 400 congregants.

The rapid rebirth of Vernon became an iconic monument to the devastated community and gave a sense of normalcy after the tragic event. The church opened its doors to Tulsa’s Booker T. Washington high school students while their facility was being rebuilt. Vernon also became the site of various community events.

The main church building was finally completed in 1928. By 1940, the membership had grown to over 800 and a neon welcome sign was erected as a beacon of hope. One of the most notable pastors of Vernon was Reverend Ben H. Hill, who had an extensive experience in church and educational work. Hill took a group of youth from the church to the famous March on Washington in 1963 and under his leadership the Church took on many other notable projects.

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in August 2018, Vernon remains a visual reminder of the reconstruction process after the Tulsa Massacre, a landmark and symbol of persistence.

On February 16, 1827, The Church Missionary Society (CMS) founded Fourah Bay College, the first college in West Africa.  The first principal of the college was Rev. Edward Jones, an African American minister.  It was located atop Mount Aureol in Freetown, the capital of Sierra Leone.

Originally intended as an Anglican missionary school to train teachers in the promotion of education and Christianity, it became a degree granting institution in 1876, when it became affiliated with Durham University in England. As a result of the affiliation, students at Fourah Bay studied the same curriculum and took examinations identical to those administered to Durham University students.  The curriculum of both institutions reflected the popular subjects of liberal arts institutions of the era: Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Arabic, History, Natural Science, French, and German. Its most prominent 19th and early 20th Century graduates included Bishop Samuel Ajayi Crowther, the first African Bishop of the Anglican Church, J. E. Casely Hayford, an early advocate of education and self-rule for West Africans, and Henry Rawlingson Carr, a prominent Nigerian educator and administrator. As one of the few places in pre-Independence Africa to offer post-secondary education, Fourah Bay College attracted sons (and daughters) of elite Africans from across the continent.  Its presence in Freetown allowed the city to tout itself as the Athens of West Africa.

During World War II, the British — the colonial government in Sierra Leone — took over Fourah Bay College because of its strategic location in Freetown and used the buildings as part of the war effort. The faculty, staff and students of the institution relocated forty miles away in temporary facilities in Mabang, Sierra Leone. After the war, Fourah Bay College returned to its location on Mount Aureol in Freetown.

Fourah Bay College continued its affiliation with Durham University until 1967, at which time the Sierra Leone government merged Fourah Bay College with Njala University College under a new federal system devised in 1966. Abioseh Nicol, a Sierra Leonean, became the first African president of the combined institution.  The union, seen as temporary at first, is now permanent.  In 2005, Fourah Bay College and Njala University are constituent colleges of the federal University of Sierra Leone.  Fourah Bay University remains an active institution of higher education with approximately 3,500 students.  As part of the University of Sierra Leone, it grants Bachelor’s, Master’s, and Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) degrees.

Africa is predicted to be the next big economy that can rival China one day. This growth is primarily dependent on how Africa manages the next few decades. Current trajectories indicate sub-Saharan Africa has had an expanding GDP worldwide in the past decade despite shrinking. By educating and empowering women, creating jobs through massive industrialization, modernizing farming, improving infrastructure, and implementing better governance, the continent stands a chance. At the moment, it is not a question of whether Africa’s economy is rapidly growing but how the continent manages the next few decades to stand besides China as an economic powerhouse. Do you think Africa stands a chance?

Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church established 1864 was the first African Methodist Episcopal (A.M.E. church) in the state of Mississippi. It was also the site for T.W. Stringer Grand Lodge of Freemasonry for the State of Mississippi headquartered in Vicksburg and founded by Rev. T.W. Stringer in 1867. The church is located at 805 Monroe Street in Vicksburg, Mississippi, at the corner of Monroe and First East streets. While the building that houses the church was built in 1828, a demolition took place in 1912 to build the present building. The most famous of the church’s early pastors was Rev. Hiram Revels who on February 25, 1870 took the oath of office to become the first Black U.S. Senator in the history of the United States. He was also the first president of Alcorn University.

Bethel AME Church was first organized and founded by Rev. Page Tyler, a missionary from Missouri. As the congregation grew, in 1868 the current church property was purchased at a cost of $28,000 from a white Presbyterian congregation that had built the church building on this site in 1828.

At one point in 1912 as the new building was being constructed, the congregation, then led by Rev. W.L. Anderson, met in a small chapel in the rear of a three-story hall on the campus of Campbell College. At that point the congregation numbered 550 parishioners.

Over time the congregation decreased due in part to the passing of its members. Nonetheless, the church community exhibited a strong desire to ensure the history of the church is preserved and continued to be shared. To that end, the city of Vicksburg and the state of Mississippi supported the successful effort to add the church to the National Register of Historic Places. On July 30, 1992 Bethel AME Church was added to the Register.

The Bethel AME congregation is currently led by Pastor Arnita Spencer who continues to share the message of God’s love and services to the community as well as the church’s historical legacy. Besides Senator Revels, prominent church members have included Isaiah Thornton Montgomery, the only African American member of the Mississippi Constitutional Convention of 1890, also the founder of the town of the all-Black town of Mound Bayou in 1887 and Campbell College in 1890, John Lynch, the first African American Congressman from Mississippi, L.J. Bowman, Alcorn State University President, and William H. Jefferson, co-founder with his wife, of Jefferson Funeral Home, Mississippi’s oldest-black owned business and oldest registered black funeral home in the state. Lucy C. Jefferson, William Jefferson’s wife, was a prominent civic organizer who invited Booker T. Washington to come to the state. She also organized the Mississippi Federation of Colored Women’s Clubs.

The Haitian Revolution has often been described as the largest and most successful slave rebellion in the Western Hemisphere. Slaves initiated the rebellion in 1791 and by 1803 they had succeeded in ending not just slavery but French control over the colony. The Haitian Revolution, however, was much more complex, consisting of several revolutions going on simultaneously. These revolutions were influenced by the French Revolution of 1789, which would come to represent a new concept of human rights, universal citizenship, and participation in government.

In the 18th century, Saint Dominigue, as Haiti was then known, became France’s wealthiest overseas colony, largely because of its production of sugar, coffee, indigo, and cotton generated by an enslaved labor force. When the French Revolution broke out in 1789 there were five distinct sets of interest groups in the colony. There were white planters—who owned the plantations and the slaves—and petit blancs, who were artisans, shop keepers and teachers. Some of them also owned a few slaves. Together they numbered 40,000 of the colony’s residents. Many of the whites on Saint Dominigue began to support an independence movement that began when France imposed steep tariffs on the items imported into the colony. The planters were extremely disenchanted with France because they were forbidden to trade with any other nation. Furthermore, the white population of Saint-Dominique did not have any representation in France. Despite their calls for independence, both the planters and petit blancs remained committed to the institution of slavery.

The three remaining groups were of African descent: those who were free, those who were slaves, and those who had run away. There were about 30,000 free black people in 1789. Half of them were mulatto and often they were wealthier than the petit blancs. The slave population was close to 500,000. The runaway slaves were called maroons; they had retreated deep into the mountains of Saint Dominigue and lived off subsistence farming. Haiti had a history of slave rebellions; the slaves were never willing to submit to their status and with their strength in numbers (10 to 1) colonial officials and planters did all that was possible to control them. Despite the harshness and cruelty of Saint Dominigue slavery, there were slave rebellions before 1791. One plot involved the poisoning of masters.

Inspired by events in France, a number of Haitian-born revolutionary movements emerged simultaneously. They used as their inspiration the French Revolution’s “Declaration of the Rights of Man.” The General Assembly in Paris responded by enacting legislation which gave the various colonies some autonomy at the local level. The legislation, which called for “all local proprietors…to be active citizens,” was both ambiguous and radical. It was interpreted in Saint Dominigue as applying only to the planter class and thus excluded petit blancs from government. Yet it allowed free citizens of color who were substantial property owners to participate. This legislation, promulgated in Paris to keep Saint Dominigue in the colonial empire, instead generated a three-sided civil war between the planters, free blacks and the petit blancs. However, all three groups would be challenged by the enslaved black majority which was also influenced and inspired by events in France.

Led by former slave Toussaint l’Overture, the enslaved would act first, rebelling against the planters on August 21, 1791. By 1792 they controlled a third of the island. Despite reinforcements from France, the area of the colony held by the rebels grew as did the violence on both sides. Before the fighting ended 100,000 of the 500,000 blacks and 24,000 of the 40,000 whites were killed. Nonetheless the former slaves managed to stave off both the French forces and the British who arrived in 1793 to conquer the colony, and who withdrew in 1798 after a series of defeats by l’Overture’s forces. By 1801 l’Overture expanded the revolution beyond Haiti, conquering the neighboring Spanish colony of Santo Domingo (present-day Dominican Republic). He abolished slavery in the Spanish-speaking colony and declared himself Governor-General for life over the entire island of Hispaniola.

At that moment the Haitian Revolution had outlasted the French Revolution which had been its inspiration. Napoleon Bonaparte, now the ruler of France, dispatched General Charles Leclerc, his brother-in-law, and 43,000 French troops to capture L’Overture and restore both French rule and slavery. L’Overture was taken and sent to France where he died in prison in 1803. Jean-Jacques Dessalines, one of l’Overture’s generals and himself a former slave, led the revolutionaries at the Battle of Vertieres on November 18, 1803 where the French forces were defeated. On January 1, 1804, Dessalines declared the nation independent and renamed it Haiti. France became the first nation to recognize its independence. Haiti thus emerged as the first black republic in the world, and the second nation in the western hemisphere (after the United States) to win its independence from a European power.

The Sharpeville Massacre, which occurred on March 21, 1960, in the township of Sharpeville, South Africa, was the incident that to that point resulted in the deaths of the largest number of South Africans in a protest against apartheid.  It also came to symbolize that struggle.

Sharpeville, a black suburb outside of Vereeniging (about fifty miles south of Johannesburg), was through the 1950s a community untouched by anti-apartheid demonstrations that occurred in surrounding towns.  By 1960, however, anti-apartheid activism reached the town.  In March 1960, Robert Sobukwe, a leader in the anti-apartheid Pan-Africanist Congress (PAC) organized the town’s first anti-apartheid protest.  In order to reduce the possibility of violence he wrote a letter to the Sharpeville police commissioner announcing the upcoming protest and emphasizing that its participants would be non-violent.

On March 21, an estimated 7,000 Africans gathered in front of the Sharpeville police station to protest against the restrictive pass laws.  Nearly 300 police officers arrived to put an end to the peaceful protest.  As they attempted to disperse the crowd, a police officer was knocked down and many in the crowd began to move forward to see what had happened.  Police witnesses claimed that stones were thrown, and in a panicked and rash reaction, the officers opened fire into the crowd.  Other witnesses claimed there was no order to open fire, and the police did not fire a warning shot above the crowd.  As the thousands of Africans tried to flee the violent scene, police continued to shoot into the crowd.  Sixty-nine Africans were killed and 186 were wounded with most shot in the back.

The Sharpeville Massacre awakened the international community to the horrors of apartheid.  The massacre also sparked hundreds of mass protests by black South Africans, many of which were ruthlessly and violently crushed by the South African police and military.  On March 30, the South African government declared a state of emergency which made any protest illegal.  The ban remained in effect until August 31, 1960.  During those five months roughly 25,000 people were arrested throughout the nation.  The South African government then created the Unlawful Organizations Act of 1960 which banned anti-apartheid groups such as the Pan Africanist Congress and the African National Congress.

The South African’s government’s repressive measures in response to the Sharpeville Massacre, however, intensified and expended the opposition to apartheid, ushering in three decades of resistance and protest in the country and increasing condemnation by world leaders.  With the election of Nelson Mandela as President of South Africa in 1994, the apartheid system ended.  Symbolically in 1994, Mandela signed the nation’s first post-apartheid constitution near the site of the 1960 massacre.

The Battle of Isandlwana, January 22, 1879, was the first engagement of the Anglo-Zulu War and would prove to be a significant and unexpected victory for the Zulu in a war which they ultimately lost to the British.

Since the British arrival in South Africa at the beginning of the 19th Century, Zululand had proved a troublesome nation in their efforts to control the region. During the first three decades of the century the British made no attempt to challenge Shaka, the founder of the Zulu Empire, and his immediate successors. From the 1840s through the 1860s however, British (and Boer) power gradually increased as Zulu military control grew weaker. By the 1870s the Zulu Empire threatened British expansion into the diamond and gold-rich interior. In 1878 the British High Commissioner of Southern Africa, Sir Bartle Frere, provoked a war with the Zulu, hoping for a sharp, short attack leading to the destruction of Zulu military power.

On December 11, 1878 Frere sent an ultimatum to Zulu King Cetshwayo, ordering him either to dismantle the military system of his nation or else face war with the British Empire. Cetshwayo had long made efforts to avoid outright war with the British; however he found it impossible to comply with this request and, just as Frere had anticipated, he refused to disband his army and instead prepared for war against the British.

On the 22nd January 1879 the British invaded Zululand. Their army was composed of nearly 1,800 troops, made up of both British and African men from the neighbouring British colony of Natal. Although they faced a force of roughly 20,000 Zulu warriors, the British felt assured of their victory due to superior military resources. However, the battle which ensued would prove to be an embarrassing defeat for the British as they were out-manoeuvred by Cetshwayo’s men. By the end of the battle the British had lost around 1,300 of their force of 1,800 while the Zulus suffered a relatively light loss of around 1,000 men.

The Zulus’ triumph, however, would not last long. In order to preserve the Imperial image of power and prestige and to avoid the Zulu victory inspiring other nations to revolt against British colonial rule, they launched a nine-month counteroffensive that would engage at least 17,000 British troops, the largest Army they sent to Africa. Britain would emerge victorious in this Anglo-Zulu War after their forces captured Cetshwayo on August 28, 1879, forcing him to agree to the dismantling of the Zulu Empire into 13 small states. Eight years later, on May 9, 1887, all of these states were annexed by the British. The Battle of Isandlwana, however, would remain an important landmark in the history of Africa as an example of defiance against European Imperialism.