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Fighting for Freedom of Speech in Ethiopia
Crying onstage in front of a crowd is not my thing, but a few days ago, as I stood next to Serkalem Fasil, I couldn’t hold back my tears. It was a bittersweet moment because Fasil had just received the prestigious PEN/Barbara Goldsmith Freedom to Write Award on behalf of her husband, Eskinder Nega. He…
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Saluting Julian Bond, Civil Rights Icon
If ever there was a man for all seasons, Julian Bond certainly fits the bill — a man whose college-student activism challenged the lie of “separate but equal” all over the South and particularly in his home state of Georgia. He went on to serve four terms in the Georgia House of Representatives and six…
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Mandela Is Home: The Latest on His Health
Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela is home again, no doubt surrounded by his loving wife and daughters and probably grandchildren and maybe a few close friends. South Africans are breathing a sigh of relief. This follows almost two days of collective worry over what the diagnosis for his stomach ailment was, how much trouble the 93-year-old former…
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Don't Forget the Climb to the Mountaintop
Jesse Jackson Sr. talked about the “parallel histories” of the American and South African quests for racial justice as he recalled some of the leaders and foot soldiers of each struggle during the ANC’s 100th anniversary celebration recently. As I listened, I found myself wondering how many of the younger generation in either country could…
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The African National Congress Turns 100
On Jan. 8 the oldest liberation movement on the African continent, the African National Congress, commences a yearlong commemoration of its centenary — which, by the way, is just three years after the NAACP’s 100th, whose goals and objectives were the same: freedom, justice and equality for all. The kickoff will be in the town…
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Is South Africa Putting a Gag on Its People?
It’s a cruel irony that many who fought against South Africa’s white-minority regime and its harsh apartheid laws are now accusing the black-led African National Congress government — many of whom also fought the same battle — of instituting a law that is a throwback to those oppressive days. And what falls into the same…
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Revolution in Tunisia and the African Media
Revolutions in the past have happened without social or even traditional media, Charlayne Hunter-Gault and Trevor Ncube, co-chairs of the African Media Initiative, write in a blog entry at All Africa. But the Arab Spring and social media worked in tandem, they say, which is a blueprint that could soon be replicated in African media.…
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Celebrating Nelson Mandela at 93
Nelson Roulihlahla Mandela is celebrating his 93rd birthday today, marking still another milestone in a life that few, perhaps not even Mandela himself, could have imagined. The boy who, like all other boys in his rural South African village of Qunu, herded sheep and kicked around a soccer ball in the rolling hills, may have…
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Why Michelle Obama's Africa Trip Matters
I didn’t have to be in the room or even in the country — which I am not right now — to have anticipated the rousing reception for Michelle Obama when she visited with young women and girls in South Africa’s black township of Soweto. Reading the White House pool reports, as even most reporters…
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In Defense of South Africa
JOHANNESBURG — The word “dysfunctional” as it relates to South Africa continued to stick in my craw several days after I was interviewed on a U.S. radio program. The lead-in to the interview mentioned South African “dysfunction” in the context of stories (and I think some opinions) about crime and corruption in the country. And…
Black News and Black Views with a Whole Lotta Attitude
