ANCESTRAL CONNECTIONS

Cubans Visit their Ancestral Home in Africa

admin — Thu, 23 May 2013 13:11:36 +0000

By Emma Christopher (Photos Sergio Leyva Seiglie) HAVANA TIMES — There are very few good news stories to come out of the transatlantic slave trade, but there was one recently in Sierra Leone. Around 180 years after their ancestor left aboard a slave ship, four Cubans—Humberto Casanova, Alfredo Duquesne, Elvira Fumero Añí and Yandrys Izquierdo—visited [...]

Angela Davis and Assata Shakur’s Lawyer Denounce FBI’s Adding of Exiled Activist to Terrorists List

admin — Sat, 04 May 2013 04:50:44 +0000

From Democracynow.org One day after the exiled former Black Panther Assata Shakur became the first woman named to the FBI’s Most Wanted Terrorists list, we’re joined by another legendary African-American activist, Angela Davis, as well as Shakur’s longtime attorney, Lennox Hinds. Davis, a professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz, is the subject of [...]

Barbara Minishi: The Red Dress

admin — Sat, 04 May 2013 04:21:07 +0000

Artscape From Aljazeera.com Filmmaker: Katharina von Schroeder Barbara Minishi follows the campaign of presidential candidate Martha Karua for her project on Kenyan women, which aims to represent a wide range of women all wearing the same red dress, as a symbol of unity and national identity. She is now one of Kenya’s top fashion photographers, [...]

Emeka Okereke: Invisible Borders

admin — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 23:24:33 +0000

"These borders are not made by us; they are remnants of colonies for the Spanish, the French and the English. They are not relevant to the African modern experience."

Sierra Leone Teen, Kelvin Doe AKA DJ Focus, Wows MIT With AMAZING Skill

admin — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 00:31:42 +0000

Originally posted on The Huffington Post | By Hayley Hudson Posted: 11/19/2012 5:13 pm EST Updated: 11/19/2012 8:11 pm EST At the age of 13, a boy living in Sierra Leone created batteries and generators using materials he picked up around the house or from trash bins. Now, he’s wowing experts in the U.S. Kelvin [...]

How to Write about Africa

admin — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 00:16:08 +0000

first published in Granta 92 winter of 2005 Always use the word ‘Africa’ or ‘Darkness’ or ‘Safari’ in your title. Subtitles may include the words ‘Zanzibar’, ‘Masai’, ‘Zulu’, ‘Zambezi’, ‘Congo’, ‘Nile’, ‘Big’, ‘Sky’, ‘Shadow’, ‘Drum’, ‘Sun’ or ‘Bygone’. Also useful are words such as ‘Guerrillas’, ‘Timeless’, ‘Primordial’ and ‘Tribal’. Note that ‘People’ means Africans who [...]

Binyavanga Wainaina: Rewriting Africa

admin — Sun, 14 Apr 2013 23:55:28 +0000

It is time to change our image of Africa. Critics say that for too long now, aid organisations, foreign diplomats, politicians and journalists have been stuck looking at this vast continent as a convenient photo-opportunity to illustrate victimhood and desperation. And few men are more forceful in advocating a change in how we perceive Africa [...]

Taxes Threaten an Island Culture in Georgia

admin — Fri, 28 Sep 2012 17:47:18 +0000

By KIM SEVERSON Published: September 25, 2012 New York Times SAPELO ISLAND, Ga. — Once the huge property tax bills started coming, telephones started ringing. It did not take long for the 50 or so people who live on this largely undeveloped barrier island to realize that life was about to get worse. Sapelo Island, [...]

Has the post-Apartheid bubble burst?

admin — Mon, 03 Sep 2012 13:53:50 +0000

Aljazeera Features Azad Essa Last Modified: 19 Aug 2012 07:00 What began as a typically grating labour dispute between unions and a mining magnate over poor wages and working conditions – the daily grist of fragile labour relations in South Africa – turned quickly into a week of violent clashes with police, talk of death [...]

Returning to the Ancestral Waters of Remembrance

admin — Sat, 02 Jun 2012 21:50:39 +0000

Returning to the Ancestral Waters of Remembrance is a moving short film documenting a group of sisters and brothers’ journey from the diaspora to Ghana, West Afrika in hopes of reconnecting with their ancestors and reclaiming a lost heritage. The story takes place during the spring of ’09 in a small village full of painful [...]