Threads

Long reads on African history, governance, economics, culture, and what comes next.

All eras Ancient (before 500 CE) Medieval (500–1500 CE) Pre-colonial (1500–1884) Colonial era (1884–1960s) Independence era (1960s–2000) Contemporary (2000–present) Future systems & solutions

Governance & Political Systems Independence era (1960s–2000)

Nkrumah's Pan-Africanism — what survived and what didn't

Kwame Nkrumah's *I Speak of Freedom* (1961) opens with a wager: that the only way the newly independent African states would resist becoming neocolonial dependencies of their former …

2 min read · Pan-African · 30 views

Governance & Political Systems Independence era (1960s–2000)

Lumumba's last letter — the declassified Belgian and US documents, and what they confirm

Patrice Lumumba, first Prime Minister of the independent Congo, was assassinated on 17 January 1961 in Élisabethville (now Lubumbashi), three months after his October 1960 dismissal by President …

2 min read · Central Africa, DRC · 21 views

Philosophy & Thought Independence era (1960s–2000)

Steve Biko in his own words — Black Consciousness as a political-philosophical programme

Steve Bantu Biko, killed in police custody on 12 September 1977 at the age of 30, left a body of writing — collected posthumously in *I Write What …

2 min read · Southern Africa, South Africa · 29 views

Governance & Political Systems Independence era (1960s–2000)

The Pan-African Congresses 1900-1945 — Du Bois, Padmore, Nkrumah and the lineage of an idea

The Pan-African Congress series — the 1900 London conference convened by Henry Sylvester Williams, the 1919 Paris congress alongside the Versailles peace conference, the 1921, 1923, and 1927 …

2 min read · Pan-African, Diaspora · 22 views