Ahmed Sékou Touré
Ahmed Sékou Touré was a trade-union organiser who led Guinea to immediate independence from France in 1958 and became a prominent, increasingly authoritarian Pan-African statesman.
People
Félix Houphouët-Boigny
Félix Houphouët-Boigny moved from African agricultural organising and French parliamentary politics to become the first president of Côte d’Ivoire.
Léopold Sédar Senghor
Léopold Sédar Senghor was a poet, theorist of Négritude and Senegal’s first president, joining cultural affirmation to the difficult practice of building a postcolonial state.
Hastings Banda
Hastings Kamuzu Banda was a physician and nationalist who led Malawi to independence, then ruled it for three decades through an authoritarian one-party system.
Seretse Khama
Seretse Khama overcame colonial exile to become Botswana’s first president and helped build one of post-independence Africa’s most durable constitutional states.
Kenneth Kaunda
Kenneth Kaunda led Zambia to independence, served as its first president and made the country a crucial base for liberation movements across Southern Africa.
Eduardo Mondlane
Eduardo Mondlane was an anthropologist, diplomat and founding president of FRELIMO who helped unite Mozambique’s independence movement.
Samora Machel
Samora Machel was a FRELIMO commander and the first president of independent Mozambique, remembered for liberation, social transformation and leadership during a devastating regional war.
Agostinho Neto
Agostinho Neto was a physician, poet and anti-colonial leader who became the first president of independent Angola.
Amílcar Cabral
Amílcar Cabral was an agronomist, revolutionary strategist and Pan-African thinker who led the struggle to end Portuguese colonial rule in Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde.
