African history

• 
• SOURCE: Al Jazeera
  6/25/2022
  

  The Belated Return of Lumumba's Tooth Shows the Tenacity of Colonialism

  "The only reason that can be offered for keeping a man’s tooth for 61 years knowing that it was obtained through torture and murder is that the cruelty is the point. Colonisation was, after all, a projection of power through cruelty, rationalised by pseudo-intellectual arguments about racial superiority and difference."

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• SOURCE: Al Jazeera
  6/8/2022
  

  Belgian King Expresses "Deepest Regrets" for Congo Atrocities

  While calling Belgian colonial rule "unjustifiable and racist" King Philippe did not go so far as to issue an apology. 

• 
• SOURCE: The Baffler
  

  Review Essay: The Bloody Business of the British Conquest of Nigeria

  by Adewale Maja-Pearce

  Self-serving stories of the civilizing mission of British Christianity paper over the brutality of colonialism. 

• 
• SOURCE: Boston Review
  4/27/2022
  

  Palm Oil is Colonialism's Continuing Nightmare

  by Max Haiven

  The extraction and trade in palm oil in west Africa has been at the center of two centuries of exploitation and violence, which stands to get worse as the Ukraine war threatens the world supply of competing sunflower oil. 

• 
• SOURCE: Washington Post
  3/8/2022
  

  Smithsonian to Return All Benin Bronzes

  The Smithsonian will return works that it has legal title to own but that are linked to an infamous British raid on Benin City in 1897.

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• 2/27/2022
  

  Excerpt: George Brown and Firestone's Liberian Empire of Rubber

  by Gregg Mitman

  The African American intellectual George Brown confronts the brutality of Firestone's rubber plantation empire in Liberia in an excerpt from a new history of the company. 

• 
• SOURCE: Diverse Education
  12/5/2021
  

  In Memoriam: Dr. Robert Farris Thompson, Pioneering African and Afro-Atlantic Art Historian

  Dr. Thompson's research pushed academics to consider African art as art, and developed important theories of Black aesthetic traditions in multiple art forms throughout the African diaspora. 

• 
• SOURCE: Black Perspectives
  11/11/2021
  

  Mapping Black Antiquity

  by Sarah Derbew

  Ancient Greek literature is full of depictions of African people that affirm their participation in classical antiquity. Why have these been submerged? 

• 
• SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
  11/11/2021
  

  Black Veterans of the First World War are Often Overlooked

  by Michelle Moyd

  Nearly 638,000 African men fought in Africa and Europe. Some were conscripted by colonial powers and forced to fight or labor, and others hoped through service to stake claims to political rights. More global attention to their service and its relationship to colonialism is needed.

• 
• SOURCE: Washington Post
  10/26/2021
  

  France to Return Looted Artifacts to Benin

  At least 90,000 artifacts from sub-Saharan Africa are held by institutions in France, according to a 2018 report commissioned by the French government.

• 
• SOURCE: Black Perspectives
  10/12/2021
  

  Jack Johnson and Africa: Boxing and Race in Colonial Africa

  by Abraham Tapiwa Seda

  Jack Johnson's achievement as the world heavyweight champion had cultural significance far beyond the United States, as European colonial regimes that had used sports like boxing as instruments of social control found that they could also be instruments of rebellion and rejection of white supremacy.

• 
• SOURCE: The Guardian
  10/12/2021
  

  Built on the Bodies of Slaves: How Africa Was Erased from the History of the Modern World

  by Howard W. French

  Popular understandings of history have generally ignored the significance of Africa and Africans in the establishment of the interconnected world and modernity. 

• 
• SOURCE: New York Times
  7/8/2021
  

  Germany Apologized for a Genocide. It’s Nowhere Near Enough

  by Kavena Hambira and Miriam Gleckman-Krut

  "To begin to atone for its Namibian genocide, Germany must negotiate directly with descendants of survivors — and commit to wide-ranging reparations."

• 
• SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
  7/12/2021
  

  Like the U.S., Rwanda is in a Pitched Battle Over its History

  by Tom Zoellner

  "Rwanda holds an important lesson for America’s culture wars today, but not in the way Tucker Carlson thinks. Rather, in Rwanda, political leaders have rewritten the country’s history to gain political power."

• 
• SOURCE: Smithsonian
  6/29/2021
  

  A New History Changes the Balance of Power Between Ethiopia and Medieval Europe

  by David Perry and Matthew Gabriele

  Verena Krebs's new book on medieval Ethiopian contact with Europeans reverses the lens to argue that the African kingdom engaged with Europeans from a position of strength. 

• 
• SOURCE: Washington Post
  5/28/2021
  

  Germany Acknowledges Colonial Genocide in Namibia and Promises Development Projects

  "We will from now on officially call these events what they are from a contemporary perspective: a genocide.”

• 
• SOURCE: WRAL
  5/17/2021
  

  Germany Nears Accord with Namibia on Colonial Killings

  Germany has hinted at its readiness to make compensation payments to Namibia in reparation for the genocidal attacks on the Herero and other peoples in 1904, considered one of the first modern genocides. 

• 
• SOURCE: New York Times
  4/30/2021
  

  Germany Sets Out Plans to Return Benin Bronzes

  “We are facing the historical and moral responsibility to bring Germany’s colonial past to light and to come to terms with it,” Monika Grütters, Germany’s culture minister, said in a news release.

• 
• SOURCE: New York Times
  4/19/2021
  

  France Enabled 1994 Rwanda Genocide, Report Says

  A Rwandan government commission has concluded that the government of France supported the leaders of genocide in Rwanda to sustain its own influence. This goes a step beyond a recent French government report that identified French involvement in virulent ethnic politics but not in genocide.

• 
• SOURCE: Black Perspectives
  3/31/2021
  

  Working with Histories that Haunt Us

  by Marius Kothor

  The author responds to a recent essay on the traumatic aspects of archival research. As a political exile from Togo, her identity and experience converged with subject matter she couldn't study at a remove.