Flashback

ADF STAFF The kingdom of Zimbabwe fell into decline in the early 15th century. Some historians say the region was starving. Others say that the kingdom’s warrior prince, Nyatsimba Mutota, left the landlocked region in search of salt, a…

The Rules of the Manden Charter Echo Today ADF STAFF Photo by REUTERS When the warrior Keita Sundiata learned that his home tribe had been conquered by a neighboring king, he went to war, using a borrowed army and forming a coalition…

ADF STAFF I teach kings the history of their ancestors, so that the lives of the ancients might serve them as an example, for the world is old, but the future springs from the past. Those are the words of griot, or storyteller, Djeli…

ADF STAFF Bai Bureh once earned the nickname Kebalai, which means “one who never tires of war.” In 1898, he took on one of the most highly trained, disciplined armies in the world. Armed with little more than his stealth, cunning and…

ADF STAFF The world recognizes Nelson Mandela as the father of post-apartheid South Africa, but he always acknowledged he had help. One of his key partners was Oliver Tambo. For nearly three decades, the two men led the fight against…

ADF STAFF In 1827, Russia’s greatest poet, Alexander Pushkin, began his first work of prose, a historical novel titled The Moor of Peter the Great. It was based on the life of his African-born great-grandfather, Abram Petrovich Gannibal,…