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."
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 […]
LUCIE PEYTERMANN In a serene studio filled with birdsong, Omar Ba takes off his shoes and gets down on his hands and knees. Then the renowned Senegalese artist begins to paint a five-meter-long canvas a deep, dark shade of black. This is how Ba, a rising star in the world of contemporary African art, starts […]
The people and places of the Passion are well documented in the Bible, but pinning down the exact locations and timing of the trials of Jesus in Jerusalem is an ongoing challenge. JEAN-PIERRE ISBOUTS One of the most sacred times in Christianity is Holy Week, which falls between Palm Sunday and Easter. It is a […]