Discover the latest stories and insights from african history across Africa
Beyond the Benue Valley: The Timeless Mystique and Pride of the Idoma In the lush heart of central Nigeria lives a community whose identity is worn like a badge of honour, woven in fiery red, grounded in deep black, and guarded by an unspoken reverence for their ancestors in Africa.
Cultural beliefs often survive through simple, everyday conversations. A child hears a warning from an older relative, remembers it and may eventually repeat it to someone else. Over time, the words become familiar, even when their original meaning is no longer clear. People may continue such practices because they believe in them, respect their elders or simply feel comfortable following familiar household traditions.
Thirty-nine years ago today, on 15 October 1987, Burkina Faso’s young president, Thomas Sankara, was shot dead during a coup in Ouagadougou. He was 37, and twelve of his comrades died with him. Today the country is led by another young army captain who often invokes his name: Ibrahim Traoré. The question many Africans now ask is whether Traoré is carrying Sankara’s torch or borrowing his image.
Beyond the Benue Valley: The Timeless Mystique and Pride of the Idoma In the lush heart of central Nigeria lives a community whose identity is worn like a badge of honour, woven in fiery red, grounded in deep black, and guarded by an unspoken reverence for their ancestors in Africa.
Cultural beliefs often survive through simple, everyday conversations. A child hears a warning from an older relative, remembers it and may eventually repeat it to someone else. Over time, the words become familiar, even when their original meaning is no longer clear. People may continue such practices because they believe in them, respect their elders or simply feel comfortable following familiar household traditions.
Thirty-nine years ago today, on 15 October 1987, Burkina Faso’s young president, Thomas Sankara, was shot dead during a coup in Ouagadougou. He was 37, and twelve of his comrades died with him. Today the country is led by another young army captain who often invokes his name: Ibrahim Traoré. The question many Africans now ask is whether Traoré is carrying Sankara’s torch or borrowing his image.
For most of the last century, the world learned about Africa from people who did not live there. The stories arrived in a handful of familiar shapes: famine, war, rescue, and the occasional safari. Africans appeared in them as subjects, rarely as narrators. Even today, a child in Houston or Hamburg is more likely to meet the continent through a charity advert than through a joke told by someone who grew up eating jollof at a family party. That is the gap the One54 podcast walked into. Its name is a quiet argument in itself: the African Union recognises 54 countries, and the show’s motto promises to celebrate all of them, one story at a time. The ambition is large, the format is simple, and the effect, as this article argues, is to move the microphone into African hands.
I am an African who has lived in Nigeria, and I share and understand some of the things Dr. Eddie Glaude Jr. talked about in this episode. One of them struck me hardest: his claim that Black Americans function like gold to the dollar. It is a sentence that sounds like a metaphor and lands like a diagnosis. I first came across Dr. Glaude on Zeteo, speaking about America at 250 years. As a Nigerian who studied political science, the dynamics of the American political system have always interested me, and listening to him I was not only following a debate but learning. When I heard him sit down with the hosts of One54, two Nigerian-Americans, I realised I was watching something rare: a serious scholar of Black America speaking directly, and honestly, to the African diaspora’s children. This article is my attempt to understand more, and to share what.....
Africa is home to over 2,000 languages, roughly a third of all the languages on Earth. And Nigeria? 500+ of them, all within one country. Humans have lived in Africa longer than anywhere else, so languages have had more time to branch out and evolve. Add huge distances, diverse landscapes, and countless distinct communities, and you get a continent that sounds different every few hundred kilometers.
We move out everyday, we see houses, buildings and all but unlike the usual buildings, houses are turned into canvases, languages, family stories and declaration of identities . Among the Ndebele people of South Africa, walls can do all of these things. With bold geometric patterns, beautiful colors, beadwork and unique traditional clothing, the Ndebele have developed one of the most recognizable visual cultures in Southern Africa
A griot is a West African oral historian, storyteller, praise singer, poet, and musician, someone tasked with preserving the genealogies, history, and cultural traditions of an entire community. Long before books existed, and long before anyone imagined artificial intelligence, griots were doing the work of both by storing information and passing it forward with precision. So the real question worth asking is why so few people today know they existed at all, people who kept Africa history in their voices and heads?
Djibouti is located in the Horn of Africa, in the northeastern part of the continent. The country shares borders with Eritrea to the north, Ethiopia to the west and south, and Somalia to the southeast. The country covers only about 23,200 square kilometers, making it one of Africa's smallest states
At an age when most children are still discovering the world through play, Goodness Ekunke was already mastering one of its oldest games. From Nigeria, this young chess prodigy has risen through junior competitions, conquered African youth competition and earned a FIDE rating above 2200 at just 14. His story is one of discipline, intelligence, patience and Africa’s growing presence on the chessboard.
Meroë, the ancient capital of the Kingdom of Kush in Sudan, is home to the world's largest concentration of pyramids. With over 200 pyramids standing proudly in the Nubian Desert, this remarkable archaeological site reveals the grandeur of an often-overlooked African civilization, proving that Sudan—not Egypt—has the most pyramids anywhere on Earth.
Why do African women tie head wraps? Beyond fashion, these traditional head coverings show culture, identity, faith, and social status. Take a journey across West Africa to discover the stories and meanings behind some of Africa's most iconic head wraps, the reasons they are tied, how they are tied and what they mean.