Africa Archives

Alf Kumalo, who died yesterday at the age of 82, “was one the the best and most important” of South Africa’s apartheid-era photojournalists,.

Between Anderson Cooper, Bono, and the New York Times deigning to (at least briefly) put a story about famine on the front page, it seems the world has finally taken notice of the unfolding disaster in the Horn of Africa. It is about DAMN time.  The US Agency for International Development (USAID) created the Famine Early Read More

The countries neighboring the Ivory Coast are worried that violence there may spread. After being told their baby had no chance of survival, an Iowa couple was forced to see the pregnancy to term and watch the child die because state law prohibits abortion after 20 weeks. Latoya on being the token Negro on feminist Read More

Most people know Jasper, TX, as the town where a black man named James Byrd was tied to a pickup truck and dragged to his death by three white men in 1998. The photography of Alonzo Jordan, who was something of a local institution,  captures the quieter, happier moments of black life in the tiny Read More

If you do anything today, you should check out the New York Times’ multimedia gallery on Uganda’s appalling anti-homosexual bill, which if passed, will mandate prison sentences and the death penalty for gay Ugandans.  The article accompanying it examines the American evangelical presence in Uganda, and the degree to which evangelicals influenced and shaped the Read More

Believe it or not, I’ve been known to be a jackass. Ask anyone who had the misfortune of knowing me in college. Or a couple years ago. I really hope President Obama isn’t asked about it anytime soon: Anyway, lots of things have happened since our last Monday roundup. Here’s a few of them, a Read More

A few days ago, I lamented that South African runner Caster Semenya was forced to perform gender to allay the public’s suspicions that she was a man. I still lament that fact. But right now, having read unofficial reports that Semenya is intersex, I feel very sad for the 18-year-old, who is discovering something life-changing Read More

It has been speculated that Uncle Tom’s Cabin aggravated the cultural conversation about slavery and planted the seeds for the Civil War. Whatever analysis is taken from the novel, Harriet Beecher Stowe’s serialized stories became relevant during a very particular time and place. So, what set the cultural tone for an unknown West African man to Read More

It’s the story of pre-colonial Nigeria, groundbreaking because it was originally written in English by a black African writer. The title was taken from a William Butler Yeats poem. It features the story of Okonkwo, a young man struggling to maintain the old customs with the ones brought by white Christian missionaries. Gods and Soldiers, briefly reviewed Read More

Because of technical difficulties and an unusually busy work day, this almost became Your Tuesday Random-Ass Roundup. Sorry I’m late again. Your PostBourgie-approved weekend reading material: First things first, Stacia, one of our co-bloggers, is writing a novel and posting a chapter a day at her personal blog. What is this space for, if not Read More
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