Black People who changed the world compiled by Eben Ofe-Boakye (2005)

1. Black People who changed the worldcompiled by Eben Ofe-Boakye (2005)

2. YAA ASANTEWA • Her fight against British colonialists is a story that is woven throughout the history of Ghana. • For months the Ashantis led by Yaa Asantewa fought very bravely and kept the white men in the fort. Yet British reinforcements totaling 1,400 soldiers arrived at Kumasi. • Yaa Asantewa and other leaders were captured and sent into exile. Yaa Asantewa's war was the last of the major war in Africa led by a woman.

3. Queen Nzingha(1582-1663) • Angolan woman who became ruler after the death of her brother in 1624. • She gave many positions of leadership in her government to other women. When she lead her troops in battle she dressed as a man. • She maintained a powerful resistance against a Portuguese conquest of her country, it was only after her death that the Portuguese trade in slaves expanded.

4. Toussaint L'Ouverture (c.1743-1803) • Was the son of an enslaved African chief in St Dominique (now called Haiti). • He led a rebellion against slavery, defeated armies from France and Britain to establish the first free Black Republic in the world! • He said, "In overthrowing me, you have cut down in St. Dominique only the trunk of the tree of liberty. It will spring up again by the roots for they are numerous and deep."

5. Lakshmi Bai (c.1830 - 1858) • She became the Rani of Jhansi through marriage to the ruler of that region of India. • After her husband died, British invaders said they would take over the government. • 'Lakshmi led the defence of Jhansi in the Great Rebellion of 1857, She was an intelligent and brave military leader. • It is said that she wore a turban, diamond bracelets, a sword and two silver pistols!

6. Rabindanath Tagore (1861 - 1941) • Won a Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913. Here is an extract from a translation of his poem. 'Gintanjali' written in 1910: 'I know that the day will come when I'll no longer see this earth, and my life will leave silently, drawing the last curtain across my eyes... When I think of this end my moments, the barriers fall and I see by the light of death Your world with it's careless treasures. How precious is its most despised place, how precious the poorest of its people.

7. Mary Seacole (1805-1881) • A Jamaican who became a nurse and sailed to England to offer her services in the Crimean War. • Her offer was turned down because she was Black, but she set off for the Crimea anyway, and worked there for three years, with Florence Nightingale. • Her work was later recognised and she was praised for her bravery.

8. Harriet Tubman (1820 - 1913) • Harriet was born a slave in Maryland, USA. She set-up an 'Underground Railway', to help slaves escape to freedom. • It was not a real railway, but code for a secret network of 'stations' (safe-houses) and 'conductors' (volunteers, many were white Quaker Christians). • The slaves were called 'passengers'. She was physically and mentally abused as a slave and eventually escaped herself to became a nurse, helping in the Civil- war. She also set up a Black Spy network reporting on the movements of the Southern Confederate Army.

9. Mahatma Gandhi (1869- 1948) • Born in India. He studied law in London, and began his peaceful protest against injustice in South Africa in 1893. • Gandhi refused to obey laws that were wrong. He returned to India, where he encouraged Indians to refuse to co-operate with British rule. • After India achieved independence in 1947, Gandhi wanted peace between Hindus and Muslims.

10. Ch'iu Chin (1879-1907) • Realised when she was very young that women in China had very little freedom. She spent her life struggling for women's rights She wore men's clothes and learned to ride a horse and use a sword. She taught at a college, published a newspaper and organised an army of women. She was arrested and beheaded. After the Chinese Revolution of 1911, her achievements were praised.

11. Marcus Garvey (1887 - 1940) • A key figure in highlighting and fighting in anti-colonial and anti-racist struggles. • He lived mainly in Kingston, Jamaica, New York and spent time in London where he studied and worked for the first Black newspaper in Britain. • He encouraged ordinary people to organise for their own liberation, emphasising unity and giving practical help.

12. Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar (1891-1956), aka Bhimrao • Ambedkar, was born into a low caste society of India • Despite being born amongst the untouchables, he led India’s millions of excluded and oppressed to their human rights.

13. Kwame Nkrumah(1905-1972) • Premier of Ghana (1957-1966), Kwame Nkrumah is considered instrumental in the birth of Pan-Africanism and the eradication of African colonialism, despite a turbulent record. • Kwame Nkrumah is considered to be the father-figure of Pan-Africanism, liberating Ghana from British rule on 6th March 1957 at a time when most other African countries were under the overseas yoke. • Nkrumah was a visionary, representing a view of Africa that others dared not dream about, espousing a United States of Africa.

14. Jesse Owens (1913-1980) • Broke four world records for running and long jump when he was 22 years old. • He won four gold medals at the 1936 Olympic Games, held in Nazi Germany, where Adolf Hitler refused to shake hands with him. • After retiring from athletics, he devoted himself to community work, especially with young people.

15. Aime Cesaire (born 1913) • Became Mayor of Fort de France in Martinique, the Caribbean country where he was born. • He is also famous as a poet. Part of his long poem, 'Return to My Native Land', says that, 'No race has all the beauty, intelligence and strength/ there is room for all the meeting-places of victory/ we know now/ that the sun moves round our earth lighting the piece of land that we alone have chosen'.

16. Rosa Parks (born 1913) • Lived and worked in Montgomery, Alabama, USA. Before the Civil Rights Movement, Black people were not allowed to use many of the same 'public' facilities as White people. For example they had to sit at the back of the bus. • One day when the bus was very crowded, on her way home from work, Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat at the back of the bus to a White man. Her arrest led to a boycott of the buses by Black people that lasted over a year (381 days!) Afterwards, the laws changed.

17. Nelson Mandela (born 1918) • From the Tembu ruling family in Transkei, South Africa. • Was expelled from college for organizing students, but went on to study law. • He founded the Youth League section of the African National Congress Party (ANC), adopting militant strategies of strikes, boycotts and civil- disobedience against apartheid. Mandela was exiled, forced into hiding and imprisoned. • He used his time in court to make political speeches. He said: " I was made, by law, a criminal, not because of what I had done, but because of what I stood for". Sentenced to life imprisonment his influence continued to grow. In 1990, aged 71 he was released and became the first democratically elected South African President in 1994

18. Fanon, Franz (1925-1961) • West Indian psychoanalyst and social philosopher, known for his theory that some neuroses are socially generated and for his writings on behalf of the national liberation of colonial peoples. • Fanon's Black Skin, White Masks (1952) reflected his personal frustrations with racism. The publication shortly before his death of his book The Wretched of the Earth (1961) established Fanon as a prophetic figure, the author of a social gospel that urged colonised peoples to purge themselves of their degradation in a "collective catharsis"

19. Maya Angelou (born 1928) • Became the first African-American woman to have non-fiction book in the best-seller lists, in 1970. • It was the first volume of her autobiography, called 'I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.' One of her poems, 'Still I Rise', begins: 'You may write me down in history/ With your bitter, twisted lies,/ You may trod me in the very dirt/ But still, like dust, I'll rise'.

20. Martin Luther King (1929-1968) • From Atlanta, Georgia in the heart of Americas' deep South. • He was inspired by Gandhi, and supported civil disobedience (non-violent struggle). • He organised peaceful protests and sit-ins for equality and justice through voting rights, calls for better housing and education.

21. Huey Newton (1942-1989) • Founded the Black Panther Party for Self Defence with Bobby Seale in 1966, after a period of American race riots. • The Panthers rejected the Civil-Rights Movements' ideas of non- violent resistance and armed themselves to patrol the streets of Oakland, defending Black people from police brutality, where necessary. • The Panthers outlined a Ten Point Programme calling for Black rights to food and clothing for children and held political education classes.

22. Muhammad Ali (born Cassius Clay in 1942) • Within 6 years of taking up boxing, in Kentucky, he had become Olympic Light Heavyweight champion. • Cassius threw his medal away in disgust at the way he was still treated by segregated America. Another four years on (1964) he had become heavyweight champion of the world and converted to Islam, dropping his 'slave-name'. As well as being a sporting legend Ali upheld his principles. • He refused to be made to feel inferior because of his race. He refused to fight in the USA's war on Vietnam, even when his medals were stripped from him. Ali won his championship status back and has been world champion three times. • He is often acknowledged as the greatest boxer ever.

23. Angela Davis (born 1944) • Angela grew up amongst racial tension in Alabama, USA, eventually becoming a member of the Black Panther Party. • She became the third woman in history to appear on the FBI's most wanted list. She was formally charged with murder and kidnapping which she did not take part in. • Davis spent sixteen months behind bars, until her subsequent acquittal of all charges. Then Davis ran for Vice President of the USA for the Communist Party! • Today Angela lectures at the University of California and runs courses on Women's Studies. She continues to be a political and social activist on issues such as prison reform and equality for Black women of all social classes.

24. Aung San Suu Kyi (born 1945) • Struggles against injustice, in Burma. She wants her people to have the right to elect their own government. • She formed a political party never giving in to threats or imprisonment. She won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991.

25. BOBMARLEY(1945-1981) • Bob Marley Jamaican musician and creative genius. He touched the hearts and minds of millions worldwide • "As a social activist, his lyrics leave an indelible mark on our past, present, and future struggles to embrace a harmonious existence within the brotherhood and sisterhood of man on this earth."

26. Steve Biko (1946 - 1977) • As a medical student in Natal he founded the all-Black South African Students' Organisation. • He travelled around different Black campuses establishing solidarity and working for students to be "accepted on their own terms as an integral part of the South African community", by emphasising pride, self-respect, self-reliance and belief in the ability to achieve political and social justice. • His organisation grew to a coalition of over 70 Black Groups which stood as a national political party at a time when the main Black parties (including the African National Congress- today's South African government), had been banned. • He designed 'Programmes' designed to uplift the Black community. He was frequently under observation and imprisoned for his work, where he was tortured and beaten to death, at the age of 31

27. Vandana Shiva (born 1952) • Set up a Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Natural Resource Policy in her home town of Dehra Dun in the foothills of the Himalayas in 1982. • She has supported the struggles of small farmers against multinational corporations and criticised the dangers of genetic engineering of foodstuffs.

28. Mumia Abu-Jamal (born 1954) • A highly respected, multi-award winning political journalist, known as 'The Voice of the Voiceless'. Whilst working as a taxi driver, in 1981, Mumia saw a policeman beating up a Black man. • Mumia intervened to try to stop it happening, then realised that the victim was his brother. • During the incident the policeman was shot dead. Although witnesses claim that it was not Mumia who fired the shot, he is now a prisoner on death row, in Pennsylvania, USA, after a notoriously unfair trial. • He continues to write and broadcast from his prison cell.

29. Daley Thompson • First athlete to win Olympic, World, Commonwealth and European titles and hold the world record

30. Philip Emeagwali (dob.23.8.1954) • A father of the Internet • A supercomputer genius, he played a major role in making the internet a reality. • It was his formula that used 65,000 separate computer processors to perform 3.1 billion calculations per second in 1989.