Dr. Kwegyir Aggrey "Only the best is good enough for Africa."
Kwame Nkrumah "The independence of Ghana is meaningless unless it is linked up with the total liberation of Africa."
WANA UDOBANG Omitonade Ifawemimo presents as a modern-day sage, with gleaming eyes, a petite frame — and wisdom to spare. She is in fact a 20-something Orisha priestess, with an easy smile and tightly knotted hair. And she has made it her mission to teach and preserve the Orisha and Ifa spiritual practices, which are […]
STEPHEN NARTEY It is uncertain the function or role glass beads played in the lives of Africans in the 15th century, but archaeological evidence confirms that glass was being manufactured in West Africa’s most populous nation of Nigeria before the arrival of the Europeans. The research team excavated more than 12,000 glass beads and particles […]
JUSTIN CHANG One of the more heartening Hollywood comeback stories in recent years has been the return of the director Gina Prince-Bythewood with movies like The Old Guard and now The Woman King. It had been a long wait for many of us who adored her earlier films like Love & Basketball and Beyond the […]
SUGHNEN YONGO-OKOCHI The North American country is the newest country to return looted items to Africa. A West African sculpture originally belonging to a West African king is among the 31 artifacts that will be returned to the Nigerian government. This artifact was originally in the collection of items displayed at the Rhode Island Museum […]
MERON DEMISSE Since touching down in New York City more than 30 years ago from his hometown Dakar, the Senegalese chef, author, and culinary activist, Pierre Thiam, has dedicated his life to introducing a global audience to west African cuisine. In doing so, he hopes to promote a region with a rich food culture, empower […]
Adorned with tall, slender pyramids, the wealthy Nile city of Meroë was the seat of power of Kush, an ancient kingdom and rival to Egypt. NURIA CASTELLANO Rising high in the sky in the modern-day nation of Sudan is a plethora of pyramids. They mark the site of the ancient city Meroë, a UNESCO World […]
Mysterious authors penned these holy texts some 2,000 years ago, but modern archaeology is shedding new light on who they were. JEAN-PIERRE ISBOUTS In November 1946, as the sun slowly rose over the Judean Desert, three Bedouin cousins went looking for a lost goat in the hills close to the Dead Sea. Intent on finding […]
BAHIRA AMIN Under the steady hum of a ceiling fan, Ahmed Othman weaves golden threads through black fabric, creating Koranic verses, a century after his grandfather’s work adorned the Kaaba in Mecca’s Grand Mosque. A ceremonial hanging of the kiswa, huge pieces of black silk embroidered with gold patterns, over the cubic structure that is […]
Meet the pageant queen who is raising awareness about climate change. BYNEHA WADEKAR, Twenty-one-year-old Khadija Omar stands by the trough at a giraffe sanctuary in Garissa County, northern Kenya, wearing a silk sash that reads Miss Somalia and a fashionable wide-brimmed sun hat to protect her flawless skin from the blazing midday heat. She is […]
Archaeologists working near Cairo have uncovered hundreds of ancient Egyptian coffins and bronze statues of deities. The discovery at a cemetery in Saqqara contained statues of the gods Anubis, Amun, Min, Osiris, Isis, Nefertum, Bastet and Hathor along with a headless statue of the architect Imhotep, who built the Saqqara pyramid, Egypt’s Ministry of Tourism […]