Africa
10 MOST POPULAR GREATEST AFRICAN LEADERS.
As we celebrate our first anniversary, we decided to bring you the best of Joburg Post since our launch.
PATRICE LUMUMBA
Patrice Émery Lumumba (alternatively styled Patrice Hemery Lumumba) (2 July 1925 – 17 January 1961) was a Congolese independence leader and the first democratically elected leader of the Congo as prime minister. As founder and leader of the mainstream Mouvement National Congolais (MNC) party, Lumumba played an important role in campaigning for independence from Belgium.
Famous Quote:
“The colonialists care nothing for Africa for her own sake. They are attracted by African riches and their actions are guided by the desire to preserve their interests in Africa against the wishes of the African people. For the colonialists all means are good if they help them to possess these riches”. Patrice Lumumba speech at the All-African Conference in Leopoldville August, 1960.
What Others Say About Him:
“If you’re looking at people like Patrice Lumumba, you are looking at people who had a very definite plan, and events overran them.” – Chiwetel Ejiofor
THOMAS SANKARA
Thomas Isidore Noël Sankara (21 December 1949 – 15 October 1987), was a Burkinabé military captain, Marxist revolutionary, pan-Africanist theorist, and President of Burkina Faso from 1983 to 1987. Viewed by supporters as a charismatic and iconic figure of revolution, he is commonly referred to as “Africa’s Che Guevara”.
Famous Quote:
“The revolution and women’s liberation go together. We do not talk of women’s emancipation as an act of charity or out of a surge of human compassion. It is a basic necessity for the revolution to triumph. Women hold up the other half of the sky.” – Thomas Sankara
What Others Say About Him:
“For the 4 short years he ruled over his people, he defied imperialism and showed Africa what could be accomplished by effectively allocating the nations mineral wealth and resources to benefits its people, shattering the imperialist lie that Africa could not survive without foreign aid. Thomas Sankara exemplified what it meant to be a selfless leader with no interest in material gain.” – — Pan-African Renaissance (Non-Profit Organisation)
JOMO KENYATTA
Jomo Kenyatta (1891- 22 August 1978) was a Kenyan politician and the first President of Kenya. Kenyatta was the leader of Kenya from independence in 1963 to his death in 1978, serving first as Prime Minister (1963–64) and then as President (1964–78). He is considered the founding father of the Kenyan nation. Kenyatta was a well-educated intellectual who authored several books, and is remembered as a Pan-Africanist.
Famous Quote:
“When the missionaries arrived, the Africans had the land and the missionaries had the Bible. They taught us how to pray with our eyes closed. When we opened them, they had the land and we had the Bible.” – Jomo Kenyatta
What Others Say About Him:
HAILE SELASSIE:
Haile Selassie I, original name Tafari Makonnen (July 23, 1892, near Harer, Eth.—Aug. 27, 1975, Addis Ababa), emperor of Ethiopia from 1930 to 1974 who sought to modernize his country and who steered it into the mainstream of post-World War II African politics. He brought Ethiopia into the League of Nations and the United Nations and made Addis Ababa the major centre for the Organization of African Unity (now African Union). Haile Selassie was also regarded as the messiah of the African race by the Rastafarian movement.
Famous Quote:
“Throughout history, it has been the inaction of those who could have acted; the indifference of those who should have known better; the silence of the voice of justice when it mattered most; that has made it possible for evil to triumph.” – Haile Selassie
What They Say About Him:
“Haile Selassie is King of Kings, Lord of Lords, and the conquering lion of the Tribe of Judah. He is everything to us Rastafarians and we will never accept that he is dead.” – Ras Lumumba, a Sudanese Rastafarian who came to settle in Ethiopia three years ago, says the Emperor is their Messiah or Jah.
AGOSTINHO NETO
A poet and a doctor by training, Agostinho Neto (Sept. 17, 1922 – September 10, 1979) became Angola’s first president when Portugese control collapsed in November 1975. Neto’s Marxist party was able to outmaneuver opponents back by the U.S. and South Africa with the help of 30,000 troops airlifted from Cuba, itself a country of majority African descent. Cuban forces would later defeat South African forces at the decisive Battle of Cuito Cuanavale (TK) in southern Angola in 1988. This paved the way for the negotiated withdrawal of South Africa from neighboring South West Africa (now Namibia) and the eventual rollback of the South African regime.
Famous Quote:
“Our contribution has to be given not only for the liquidation of the colonial system but also for the liquidation of ignorance, disease and primitive forms of social organization.” A. Neto
What They Say About Him:
“Not only did he forge a consciousness, he also forged, like Martí, the instrument of the struggle and charted a line, a road — the only road in Angola, like yesterday in Cuba — for achieving independence, which was the heroic struggle of the people, the armed struggle of the people. And for many years, he has led that struggle. Neto is also one of the most modest, noble and honest men I have ever known.” – Fidel Castro
KENNETH KAUNDA
Kenneth Kaunda (born 28 April 1924) served as the first President of independent Zambia (1964-1991). He played a leading role in Zambia’s independence movement. During his presidency, Kaunda (nicknamed KK), often served as a buffer between the states in southern Africa that were predominately white and the independent states in the north that were predominately black. In an effort to move the territory towards independence from the British rule, he made a bold move by breaking away from the African National Congress. After his departure, he founded the Zambian African National Congress.
Famous Quote:
“The power which establishes a state is violence; the power which maintains it is violence; the power which eventually overthrows it is violence.” – Kenneth Kaunda
What Others Say About Him:
“Kaunda’s radicalization set him apart. Hewas a transforming force in nationalism. Kaunda saw anti-colonial struggles in Zambia as integral to Pan-Africanism” – Ackson M Kanduza
KWAME NKRUMAH
Dr. Kwame Nkrumah of newly independent Ghana. The British crown colony of the Gold Coast, became its own country of Ghana on March 6, 1957. Dr. Nkrumah became its first President. Ghana: c. 1957
(Photo by Underwood Archives/Getty Images)
(Photo by Underwood Archives/Getty Images)
Kwame Nkrumah (21 September 1909 – 27 April 1972) led Ghana to independence from Britain in 1957 and served as its first prime minister and president. Nkrumah first gained power as leader of the colonial Gold Coast, and held it until he was deposed in 1966. An influential 20th-century advocate of Pan-Africanism, he was a founding member of the Organization of African Unity and was the winner of the Lenin Peace Prize in 1962.
Famous quote:
“I am not African because I was born in Africa but because Africa was born in me.” Kwame Nkrumah
What they say about him:
“We honour Ghana as the first independent state in modern Afrika which, under the courageous nationalist leadership of Dr. Nkrumah and the Convention People’s Party, has actively interested itself in the liberation of the whole continent from White domination, and has held out the vision of a democratic United States of Afrika.” – Mangaliso Robert Sobukwe
JULIUS NYERERE
Widely respected for his integrity and selflessness, Dr. Julius Nyerere (13 April 1922 – 14 October 1999) led Tanzania (formerly the colonies of Tanganyika and Zanzibar) to independence without war or bloodshed and became the new nation’s first president in 1964. Nyerere advocated an African socialism rooted in the ujamaa, the traditional extended family found in rural Africa. Due to his emphasis on national over tribal identity, Tanzania has been free from the political strife and instability that has plagued many African nations. Tanzania also provided refuge and support for liberation movements in Mozambique, southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) and South Africa. When some of his collectivist policies faltered, Nyerere publicly rebuked himself in 1977 and changed course. He stepped down from the presidency in 1985.
Famous Quote:
“African nationalism is meaningless, dangerous, anachronistic, if it is not, at the same time, pan-Africanism.” – Julius Nyerere
What They Say About Him:
“We arrived in Dar es Salaam the next day and I met Julius Nyerere, the newly independent country’s first president. We talked at his house, which was not at all grand, and I recall that he drove himself in a simple car, a little Austin. This impressed me for it suggested that he was a man of the people.” – Nelson Mandela
NELSON MANDELA
Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela (July 18, 1918 – December 5, 2013) served as President of South Africa from 1994 to 1999, and was the first South African president to be elected in a fully representative democratic election. Before his presidency, Mandela was an anti-apartheid activist, and the leader of Umkhonto we Sizwe, the armed wing of the African National Congress (ANC). In 1962 he was arrested and convicted of sabotage and other charges, and sentenced to life in prison. Mandela served 27 years in prison, spending many of these years on Robben Island. Following his release from prison on 11 February 1990, Mandela led his party in the negotiations that led to multi-racial democracy in 1994. As president from 1994 to 1999, he frequently gave priority to reconciliation.
Famous Quote:
“No one is born hating another person because of the colour of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.” – Nelson Mandela
What They Say About Him:
“Mandela showed us the power of action; of taking risks on behalf of our ideals. Perhaps Madiba was right that he inherited, “a proud rebelliousness, a stubborn sense of fairness” from his father. Certainly he shared with millions of black and coloured South Africans the anger born of, “a thousand slights, a thousand indignities, a thousand unremembered moments … a desire to fight the system that imprisoned my people.” – Barrack Obama
SAMORA MACHEL
Founded as a Portuguese slave colony in the late 1400s, Mozambique gained independence in June 1975 following a 15-year liberation struggle championed by FRELIMO and its charismatic leader Samora Machel (September 29, 1933 – October 19, 1986). Upon becoming Mozambique’s first president, Machel nationalized the properties of the former colonists, poured scarce resources into schools and health clinics, and provided refuge and support for black liberation fighters from neighboring South Africa and Rhodesia. South Africa’s apartheid regime in turn supported rebels who laid waste to much of rural Mozambique, forcing Machel to sign a peace accord with South Africa in 1984. Machel was killed two years later in a mysterious plane crash near the Mozambique-South Africa border.
Famous Quote:
“The Emancipation of women is not an act of charity, the result of a humanitarian or compassionate attitude. The liberation of women is a fundamental necessity for the revolution, a guarantee of its continuity and a precondition for its victory.” Samora Machel Speech delivered in 1973.
What They Say About Him:
“In Samora Moises Machel the peoples of Mozambique and all of Southern Africa, had a leader of great intellect and courage, a general with strategic grasp and unwavering commitment to freedom and justice; a visionary for whom the interdependence of the countries and peoples of our region meant that none could enjoy freedom while some remained oppressed.” – Thabo Mbeki
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