Important figures in African history

Steve Biko

(1946-1977) An organizer of black consciousness movement in South Africa, in opposition to apartheid; murdered while in police custody

Ellen Johnson Sirleaf

Liberian politician who served as the 24th President of Liberia from 2006 to 2018. Sirleaf was the first elected female head of state in Africa

Samora Machel

Mozambican military leader, revolutionary socialist leader and eventual President of Mozambique

Julius Nyerere

Tanzanian anti-colonial activist, politician, and political theorist

Thomas Sankara

a Burkinabé military officer and socialist revolutionary who served as the President of Burkina Faso

Wangari Maathai

a Kenyan social, environmental, and political activist and the first African woman to win the Nobel Prize.

Nelson Mandela

first black president of South Africa, fought for equal rights

Kwame Nkrumah

founder of Ghana's independence movement and Ghana's first president. Led the Gold coast to independence from Britain in 1957.

Kumi Naidoo

human rights activists

J.B. Danquah

one of Ghana's founding fathers, He played a significant role in pre- and post-colonial Ghana, which was formerly the Gold Coast, and is credited with giving Ghana its name.

Patrice Lumumba

the first prime minister of the Congo and also helped the Congo gain independence from Belgium; he was liked by the Congolese but not by the U.S. and the government and he was quickly imprisoned and murdered

Robert Mugabe

A Zimbabwean revolutionary and politician who served as Prime Minister of Zimbabwe from 1980 to 1987 and then as President from 1987 to 2017.

Jomo Kenyatta

A nationalist leader who fought to end oppressive laws against Africans; later became the first Prime Minister of Kenya

Frederick Douglass

Escaped slave and great black abolitionist who fought to end slavery through political action

Harriet Tubman

Former slave who helped slaves escape on the Underground Railroad