Jomo Kenyatta is a Kenyan statesman. An independence activist, he is imprisoned from 1952 to 1961 and became Prime Minister from 1963 to 1964 and then President of the Republic from 1964 to 1978. Kenyatta not only fought for Kenya’s independence, he also tried to make it a united nation, in spite of a very […]
Jean-Jacques Dessalines was born a slave in the French part of the island of Santo Domingo (Republic of Haiti). He took part in the general uprising of August 1791. Once slavery was abolished, in 1794, Dessalines followed Toussaint when the latter rallied against the French. He became his lieutenant. They later succeeded in defeating the […]
Huda Shaarawi is a pioneer of Egyptian feminism. She set up, in January 1920, the Wafd Central Committee, of which she was elected Chairwoman. In 1923, shortly after the death of her husband, when she returned to Egypt, she decided not to put her scarf on and continued her political struggle with her face uncovered. […]
His real name Mouhamed Boukharouba, Houari Boumediene is a colonel and an Algerian statesman. He is the 2nd Head of State from 1965 to 1976, then President of the Republic from 1976 to 1978. A professional soldier, Chief of the General Staff of the National Liberation Army from 1959 to 1962. Following a coup d’état, […]
Gisèle Rabesahala is a Malagasy politician who dedicated her life to the independence of her country, to human rights and the freedom of people. At the age of 17, she took her first steps into politics by becoming involved as secretary in the Democratic Movement for Malagasy Renewal (MDRM), which campaigns for the country’s independence. […]
Born into a very modest family in Monrovia, the young teenager Georges Weah started playing football in a modest club in the city. In 1988, he plays at Tonnerre in Yaoundé. It is the beginning of his international career which reached its peak when it won the 1995 FIFA Ballon d’Or award, and became thus […]
Gamal Abdel Nasser became involved at a very young age in the fight against British influence in Egypt. As a lieutenant-colonel, he founded in 1945 the Mouvement of Free Officers, in 1952 led a military coup d’état against King Farouk and proclaimed the Republic in 1953. Among the main actors of the conference of Bandoeng […]
Frantz Fanon was a physician and writer, a Martinican anti-colonialist fighter. In 1957, as a psychiatrist posted in Blida (Algeria), he is suspected of collaboration with the rebels and expelled. Exiled in Tunis, capital of the FLN in exile, he becomes one of the main spokespersons and editors of El Moujahid, the body of FLN […]
Félix Houphouët-Boigny was the First President of Côte d’Ivoire from 1960 to 1993. Nicknamed « the wise man », he is the « father » of the independence of the Côte d’Ivoire. Successively traditional chief, doctor, planter, trade union leader, Member of Parliament in France, Minister of French Governments, President of the Ivorian National Assembly, Mayor of Abidjan, First […]
Claudia Jones, born Vera Cumberbatch, is a journalist, feminist and Trinidadian communist. This civil rights activist is a descendant of Carribean slaves who first joined the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) before joining the Young Communist League in 1936, the youth branch of the American Communist Party. Expelled from the United […]
