Celebrating Madiba’s 95th in DC: Mandela Matters

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Eleanor Holmes Norton South Africa, Faida Mitifu, Johnetta Cole, Mandela birthday, Mandela day in DC, Michael Eric Dyson South Africa, Princeton Lyman, Richard Lugar Africa, Ron Dellums, TransAfrica Forum

For those of my generation (I was barely in school when Mandela was released from prison) who may have historical yearnings to have experienced the US anti-Apartheid movement of the 1980s first-hand, attendance at yesterday’s 95th birthday celebration of Nelson Mandela may be the closest that one will ever come to rekindling that atmosphere.  However, I don’t think that one would have found the South African Ambassador scurrying around with a bunch of bananas in

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Ali Mazrui, Chevron, and the Embassy of Nigeria Honor Chinua Achebe

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Adebowale Adefuye, Africa Society, Ali Mazrui, Biafra war, Chevron, Chinua Achebe, Johnetta Cole, Nigerian Embassy

In what was probably not the most fitting of tributes, the Embassy of Nigeria and Chevron teamed up to support the most recent edition of the Africa Society’s Andrew Young lecture series.  The noted academic, Ali Mazrui, who I first became aware of while perusing the University of Ghana’s bookstore as an undergraduate, was the featured speaker for an event honoring the recently deceased African literary dean, Chinua Achebe.  Perhaps the most interesting point, which will please the Afro-pessimists out there, is that both of these African scholarly giants