Black Cantabs Research SocietyA prominent Judge, Musa Haji Deria Mohamed served as Attorney-General of the Somali Republic from 1970 to 1976, working to fuse the traditional Somali law system with elements of western legal systems. The following profile is an excerpt from The biography of Musa Haji Deria Mohamed, originally published in the bi-annual Journal of the Anglo-Somali […]
Born Barrington John Reckord in 1926, Kingston Jamaica, “Barry” was a Jamaican playwright who is recognised as one of the earliest Caribbean writers to contribute to British theatre. Said to be the first Black Briton to have a play performed at London’s Royal Court Theatre, Barry Reckford produced over a dozen plays. He excelled at […]
Described by many of his peers as the “uncrowned king of West Africa”, Casely Hayford was born in 1866 in the Cape Coast (present day Ghana). He was lawyer, educator, journalist and politician most known for his contributions to the theory of Pan- Africanism. As a boy, he attended the Wesleyan Boy’s High School in […]
Alexander Crummell was an African-American Episcopalian minister, scholar, and educator, and was the first known Black person to get a degree from Cambridge University. Crummell was a key figure in the struggle for Black people’s rights in the United States, Great Britain, and the African continent. Alexander created the idea of pan-Africanism by drawing on […]
Alinah Kelo Segobye is an archaeologist, social development activist, and African futures thinker and practitioner. Segobye’s research interests include southern African archaeology, indigenous knowledge systems, heritage studies, and HIV/AIDS. “A deep rooted passion for the [African] continent’s development agenda both past and present” motivates her professional pursuits. Segobye was born in Botswana in a village […]
Archibald Boyce Monwabisi Mafeje (March 30, 1936 – March 28, 2007), also known as Archie Mafeje, was a South African social scientist and Pan-African activist. An anthropologist by training, Mafeje became a prominent scholar internationally. Throughout his career, he contested ideas about colonialism and racial hierarchy ingrained within anthropology and advocated for African-centered ways of […]
Diane Julie Abbott is both the first black woman ever elected to the UK Parliament and the longest-serving black MP in the House of Commons. She was born on the 27th of September 1953 in Paddington, London to Jamaican parents. She was the first in her family to remain in school past the age of […]
Dr Ato Quayson is a Ghanaian literary critic and the Jean G. and Morris M. Doyle Professor in interdisciplinary studies and comparative literature at Stanford University. Dr Quayson studied for his undergraduate degree at the University of Ghana in 1989, graduating with a bachelor’s (First class) in English and Arabic. Matriculating at Pembroke College in […]
Dr Danielle S. Allen is a political theorist, author, educator, and the James Bryant Conant Professor at Harvard University. Dr Allen studied for her undergraduate degree at Princeton University in 1993, graduating with a summa cum laude in Classics, and was inducted into Phi beta kappa. She came to Cambridge University as a Marshall Scholar, […]
Thomas Risley Odhiambo was a Kenyan entomologist and environmental activist who dedicated his life to scientific development in the African continent. Born in Mombasa, Kenya, on February 4, 1931, Odhiambo came from a humble background, where he was the first of 10 children, and his father worked as a telegraph officer. He began to provide […]