Africa World Now Project

In a November 1797 Letter to the French Directory, Toussaint L’Ouverture writes a warning to the French and its allies in Haiti of any attempts to (re)institute slavery in Saint Domingue: “Do [the forces of reaction] think that men who have been able to enjoy the blessing of liberty will calmly see it snatched away? ... If they had a thousand lives, they would sacrifice them all rather than be for...

To understand the music of John Coltrane you must understand the long genealogy of the genre of African Diasporic cultural expression—called Black (or American) Classical Music or jazz as it is often labeled particularly, as it moves back and forth on the time/space continuum. From the Now moment. To the Future moment as yet seen. To the complexities of the past. Back to Now. Never in a linear pat...

Robin D.G. Kelley argues that Cedric Robinson’s book is “a critique of Western Marxism and its failure to understand the conditions and movements of Black people in Africa and the Diaspora.” Kelley goes on to suggest that Robinson not only exposes the limits of historical materialism as a way of understanding Black experience but also reveals that the roots of Western racism took hold in European...

Over the past few weeks there has been a low-humming buzz on dominant media platforms around the release of New York Times Magazine 1619 Project. The lead author, investigative journalist, Nikole Hannah-Jones writes that: “The 1619 Project is a major initiative from The New York Times observing the 400th anniversary of the beginning of American slavery. It aims to reframe the country’s history, un...

Descriptors such as jungle music, negro music, jazz...African American Classical Music. Black Classical Music. Spirit Music...and African Rhythms...have been attached to the vibrational human expressions, that once organized into various rhythms, notes, and harmonies become what we have come to call—music. The deep structures that organize these vibrations have purpose. They have origin. They have...

How do we see?...before you become perplexed at such a simple question...the answer is more complex than we usually give time to consider… If you thought and said, with our eyes! Then you are fractionally correct. And I mean fractionally…because the sciences have proven beyond doubt, opinion or belief that, we quote see unquote with our mind(s). The various conflation of influences that coagulate...

In The Price of Racial Reconciliation, Dr. Ronald Walters writes “the power of history is not only its description of events, but also its relation to the identity of those who shape it, and those “who suffer from such shaping. As such, “history” comprises events that groups select as a resource to derive identity and meaning from the past, and to inform present understanding or action. The select...

Dr. Ichile in her article titled, Black Magic Woman: Towards a Theory of Africana Women's Resistance suggest that when properly contextualized, the role of enslaved African women in history was multiple, but two primary roles are prevalent, they were both spiritual and political leaders. Contextualized as such, Dr. Ichile then show that three major aspects of women's resistance emerge: (1) African...

Note: this program is from 2019! We leave it here for context of the current situation. In a Washington Post article titled, Recent protests in Sudan are much more than bread riots, Nisrin Elamin and Zachariah Mampilly, writes “On Dec. 19 2018, the town of Atbara in northeastern Sudan erupted in protest against the military dictatorship that has ruled the country for almost three decades. People t...

Writing in Where is the ‘African’ in African Studies, on African Arguments, Robtel Pailey asserts that “the extent to which the ‘African’ in African Studies is concealed or revealed depends entirely on the politics of the knowledge producer, the ethos of the institution they represent, the pedagogy and methods they employ, and their level of commitment to the continent and its people.” In Decoloni...

Today, Africa World Now Project collectives' Tasneem Siddiqui and Keisha-Khan Perry sit down with Dr. Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor and explore the contours, continuities, and evolutions in Africana radical sociopolitical thought. Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor is currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of African American Studies at Princeton University. Professor Taylor is author of, Haymarket Boo...

Sterling A. Brown work amplifies and materialize the nature of the aesthetic connections that find continuity in contemporary black life. Brown opens, Southern Road with an epigraph of an old negro spiritual: ‘O de ole sheep dey knows de road, Young lambs gotta find de way.’ It is with this, Sterling A Brown highlights the intentions of his work which is ‘to face two directions at simultaneously'....

We begin our program today with an update on current activities in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Mwiza Munthali, Africa World Now Project executive producer, human rights activist, and international journalist recently caught up with Kambale Musavuli. Kambale Musavuli, a native of the Democratic Republic of Congo and one of the leading political and cultural Congolese voices, is a human ri...

Dr. Todd Steven Burroughs asserts that, fantasy can be a form of social protest, but fantasy can also be a form of mental conquest. The imagination of the black mind has produced some the most advanced conceptualizations of justice, freedom, citizenship, and peace. The sovereignty of the black imagination has also been constantly under assault. It is the duty of those who create to educate their a...

Writing in his 2006 work titled, Yoruba Culture: A Philosophical Account, Dr. Kola Abimbola argues that Yoruba sociopolitical religious practices—( Òrìṣa tradition and culture) were expanded and intensified throughout the Americas due to the Transatlantic human trade which saw the enslaved millions of Africans. He writes: “Today, the Òrìṣa tradition and culture is practices by about 100 million pe...

Today, we bring to you a recent wide-ranging conversation exploring the HBCUs as a response to and product of coloniality, sovereignty of the black imagination, the philosophical roots of Black Thought/Black Study, and the impetus of evolving black institutions (back) to becoming a maroon space with Corey Walker and Josh Myers. Dr. Corey Walker is a visiting professor at the University of Richmond...

In order to understand the current sociopolitical conditions and deep Africana radical cultural influences moving in Sudan today, the long historical genealogy, the evolutions in physical geography, and the migration and interaction patterns of various communities of African peoples of the region must be explored. Despite the growth and retractions of the region, one of these descriptors that has...

The relationship between spirituality, science, language, the political, the transference and production of culture presents a rich terrain to understanding the relationship between liberation, humanity & justice. At this point in human history, no matter how hard those who seek to dominate, distort historical record to marginalize the deep-rooted African genesis of human existence, the facts,...

The relationship between the rise of capitalism, the exploitation of labor and natural resources, the control of productive forces are important components of interests when attempting to understand the imposition of the negatively constructed sociopolitical and cultural institutions of the West. The contractions that move capitalist societies have been subjects of those who study and try to organ...

According to the article, Reform or Transformation? The Pivotal Role of Food Justice in the U.S. Food Movement, the global food price crisis of 2008 ushered in record levels of hunger for the world’s poor at a time of record global harvests as well as record profits for the world’s major agrifoods corporations (Lean 2008). According to the United Nations World Food Program, more than 90 percent of...

"It could have easily been called 'Afro-American Fight Song'. My solo in it is a deeply concentrated one. I can't play right unless I'm thinking about prejudice and hate and persecutions, and how unfair it is. There's a sadness and cries in it, but also determination." --Charles Mingus, Haitian Fight Song, The Clown, 1957; Maurice Jackson, Friends of the Negro! Fly with Me... The Haitian Revolutio...

In the last speech you heard, was of Thomas Sankara. In it he asserts that: “Our country produces enough food to feed us all. In fact, we can produce more than enough. But because of the lack of organization. We still need to beg for food aid. This type of assistance is counterproductive. And has kept us thinking we are only beggars who need aid….I am asked where is imperialism. I say, look at you...

Today's program covered: The 60th Anniversary of the 1958 All-African People’s Conference | Held: December 5-8, 2018 | Institute of Africa Studies | University of Ghana The histories of Pan African activity are often incomplete, not because we do not know them. But often because academically, African and Diasporic academicians do not engage with each other. Interesting notion, when this class of f...

“History teaches us clearly that the battle against colonialism does not run straight away along the lines of nationalism. For a very long time the native devotes his energies to ending certain definite abuses: forced labour, corporal punishment, inequality of salaries, limitation of political rights, etc. This fight for democracy against the oppression of mankind will slowly leave the confusion o...

The histories of cooperative practice and ownership of Africana communities have a long history, particularly when we account for an Africana human agency in the face of hyper-exploitation and hyper-extractive logics and practice of racial capitalism. These systems and logic encompass the privatization and monopoly over agriculture, manufacturing, finance, housing, healthcare, land, water, and oth...