Before he died in 2011, leader of the Biafran secessionist movement, Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu, had assumed four personalities: he was a hero, a villain, a rebel, and even a ‘one-Nigerianist’.

The Haitian Revolution was a pivotal moment in the history of the African diaspora, but it encouraged as much Black revolutionary zeal as it deterred.

A troubled relationship with Zikism, the leftist political ideology Nnamdi Azikiwe inspired and drew his political base from, may explain his sudden yet prolonged fall from prominence.

Every year, Irene Cohen and Deolinda Rodrigues, two Angolan nationalists, are eulogized on Angolan Women’s Day on March 2; their short and tragic lives are made emblematic of African feminism and national pride.

Robert Mugabe, the dictator who ruled Zimbabwe for more than three decades, had revolutionary beginnings. He was shaped by a tumultuous brew of pan-African nationalism, associated authoritarianism, and his own startling yet grossly under-discussed political rise. 

In the freedom fighting legacy of Malawi’s Vera Chirwa, you see the power of emotion and feelings, often devalued in women, as the driver of her activism. You see, also, the feelings and compassion for the people whose freedom she fought for and still the love she held for her own family, while being tortured and violated by the country she stood for.