This chapter assesses the career of St. Lucian Nobel literature-winning playwright and poet, Derek Walcott, through an examination of some of his key texts, including an analysis of his discomfort with the proponents of “Black Power” in the 1960s and 1970s.

This chapter focuses on the Pan-Africanist philosophy of Beninois scholar-politician, Paulin Hountondji, and his quest to develop an African epistemology that was self-dependent and academically rigorous.

This chapter assesses the contributions of scholar-diplomat Edward Blyden – sometimes referred to as the “Father of Pan-Africanism” – to the movement through his concept of “Ethiopianism” which urged African Americans in the Diaspora to return to Africa to help develop the continent.

This chapter examines the philosophy of Martinique’s Frantz Fanon as a political theorist of democracy and a political sociologist of development, as well as his Marxist ideas on revolutionary change in Africa (based on his direct experiences in civil war Algeria), and his critique of the first generation of post-independence African leaders.

This introduction discusses the main varieties of modern South African historiography – that is, the trends that have shaped the field over the last five decades or so. It discusses the major schools, which are Afrikaans neo-Marxist, revisionist and postmodern historiography. The sections will discuss the major individual contributors to each of these schools, and the controversies that have embroiled each of the interpretations. The chapter will also provide a sense of the unresolved problems within the field. This discussion will serve as a basis for the final section of the chapter, which will introduce the respective contributions to History beyond apartheid, and explain how they build on the legacy of the various strands of the South African historiographical tradition.

This chapter examines the philosophy of Black Consciousness as advocated by Steve Biko in order to increase the consciousness and self-confidence of South Africa’s black masses to liberate themselves.

This chapter assesses the philosophical thoughts of Bissau Guinean revolutionary, Amilcar Cabral, who was greatly influenced by Fanon. Rabaka analyses Cabral’s critical theories of revolutionary decolonization and revolutionary re-Africanization.

This chapter assesses the Pan-Africanist activism of South African singer, Miriam Makeba, who used her music and speeches to campaign against apartheid at the UN and other international fora. She also lived in Guinea, and travelled across Africa and its Diaspora spreading her message.

This chapter reviews the history of Africa’s quest for Pan-African unity in the areas of politics, socio-economic development, and culture, and puts this in the context of the 39 figures of Pan-Africanism in this book in relation to their intellectual thought and individual struggles.

This chapter argues that African delegates at the United Nations (UN) World Conference on Racism in 2001 betrayed the African and Caribbean cause for reparations for slavery and colonialism, and calls for a reorientation of the relationship of Africa with its Diaspora.

This chapter traces Garvey’s struggles to lead a “Back to Africa” Movement through the Universal Negro Improvement and Conservation Association and African Communities Imperial League (UNIA), as well as his activism in the US and Caribbean.

This chapter proposes a new mixed-methodological approach to recovering and analysing black women’s and children’s intertwined, gendered lived experiences of motherhood and domestic work in South Africa’s past. The approach offered involves simultaneously ‘reading’ and ‘seeing’ two diverse cultural forms to reconstruct narratives in women’s history: the contemporary art of Zanele Muholi and the literary fiction of Sindiwe Magona. In particular, it brings Magona’s short stories from Living, Loving and Lying Awake at Night (2003) into conversation with Muholi’s Minah VI (2008), ‘Massa’ and Maids, IV, Hout Bay (2009) and Bester I, Mayotte (2015). However, it must be noted that Magona and Muholi occupy different gendered subject positions. While Magona’s fiction depicts her experiences as a maid-mother, Muholi is a gender nonbinary artist who visualises their own experiences as the child of a domestic worker. Muholi’s art-activism has often been interpreted in terms of its depictions of the lives of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex and queer (LGBTIQ) people. Yet, the ways in which the artist’s work also sheds light on children’s lived experiences of maid-motherhood requires further analysis. In general, these written and visual works illuminate the evolution of black gender-oppressed people’s identities, cultural forms and activism over time.

This chapter examines the Pan-African and civil rights struggles of radical anti-establishment Nigerian musician, Fela Anikulapo-Kuti.

This chapter investigates how Jamaican musician, Bob Marley, used reggae – inspired by Marcus Garvey’s Pan-Africanism – as a weapon for preaching a liberation gospel advocating the decolonization of Southern Africa and the unity of Africa and its Diaspora.

This chapter examines the Pan-Africanism of former South African president Thabo Mbeki, comparing him to Kwame Nkrumah, before examining his efforts at building institutions of the African Union and engaging the African Diaspora in America, the Caribbean, and Brazil.