The Champion They Wouldn’t Crown: Len Johnson and Britain’s Colour Bar
Leonard Benker Johnson was born on October 22, 1902, in Clayton, Manchester. His father was a merchant seaman from Sierra Leone. His mother was...
The Negro Act of 1740 – The Law That Invented American White Supremacy
On May 10, 1740, the South Carolina General Assembly enacted the "Bill for the better ordering and governing of Negroes and other slaves in...
Job Maseko – How a Gold Miner Sank a German Ship With Condensed Milk Tin
Job Maseko was born around 1922 in KwaThema, a township in Springs, South Africa. He worked in the gold mines. When war came, he...
The Children They Tried to Erase: The Nazi Sterilisation of Afro-German Rhineland Children
In 1937, Nazi Germany launched a secret sterilisation programme targeting mixed-race children in the Rhineland. These were the children of German women and Black...
The Professor They Could Not Convict: Angela Davis and the 1972 Trial
On 4 June 1972, an all-white jury in San Jose, California, found Angela Yvonne Davis not guilty of murder, kidnapping, and conspiracy. The charges...
The Man They Overthrew While He Was Trying to Save Other People’s Children
On February 21, 1966, Kwame Nkrumah boarded a plane for Hanoi. Ho Chi Minh had invited him to mediate the Vietnam War. Nkrumah believed...
“When They Found Out I Was Black, Their Interest Dropped”: The Mary Kenner Story
Mary Beatrice Davidson Kenner was 12 years old when her family moved to Washington, D.C. Instead of exploring monuments, she walked the halls of...
The Book That Set Africa Ablaze: Frantz Fanon’s “The Wretched of the Earth” at 60
The facts, then. In 1961, a dying man in Tunisia wrote a book that would become the bible of decolonization. His name was Frantz...
Three Sisters Who Changed Wrestling Forever: The Forgotten Story of the Wingo Sisters
The facts, then. In the 1950s, three sisters from Decatur, Georgia, stepped into a wrestling ring and changed the sport forever. Their names were...
The Man Who Wrote “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” Died with $40 in the Bank
The facts, then. In 1939, a Zulu migrant worker named Solomon Linda walked into the Gallo Recording Studios in Johannesburg after his shift as...
