Legends—Looking Back, Facing Forward

They fought against the ravages of time—and won. Low-fired ceramic figures and fragments such as these have been unearthed since the 1940s at various sites throughout the Inland Niger Delta region, an area that once had highly developed cities. These works are among the earliest known surviving art forms in sub-Saharan Africa. By the 15th or 16th century, environmental and political events caused the urban centers of the Delta region to be abandoned, and the art tradition did not survive. The earliest known written reference to such figures is found in a letter of 1447. In it, a visiting Italian merchant remarked that the figures were kept in sanctuaries and venerated as representing the deified ancestors of famous founding rulers of the region. The elaborate dress of the figures suggests ceremonial military attire, and they may represent warriors who were once allies of the Malian emperor Sundiata Keita (c. 1217–1255).

Don’t cross this woman warrior. The rider wears a hat like those worn by other important persons in the Mande world, including hunters, ritual specialists, and the praise singers and historians known as griots. The portrayal of a female rider, in particular, recalls those women who acquired power and earned respect through force of character or ability as a sorcerer and are affiliated with hunters’ associations. The horse suggests the historical memory of the powerful cavalry that dominated Mali for centuries. Such staffs were displayed on special occasions to commemorate ancestors or placed near areas sacred to powerful Bamana religious groups. This sculpture was once part of a longer iron staff, likely carried by a Bamana chief.

The Manding Diarra, the Lion of Mali, brought his people justice, peace, and prosperity

• According to Mande oral traditions, Sundiata, who was born with a disability, learned to walk with the help of his mother, Sogolon, and a blacksmith.
• Mocked and forced into exile due to his disability, Sundiata nevertheless returned to unite the Mande-speaking clans to overthrow Sumanguru Kante, a wicked ruler who took over the remnants of the Ghana Empire and used dark magic to subject his people.
• Sundiata built a centralized monarchy—the Mali Empire—which, through its control of trans-Saharan trade and gold fields, became one of the wealthiest states of the Muslim world.

I salute you all, sons of Mali . . . I have come back, and as long as I breathe, Mali will never be in thrall—rather death than slavery. We will live free because our ancestors lived free.

—Sundiata Keita, in D.T. Niane, Sundiata: An Epic of Old Mali

Troubles may just ride away. Imagine the soothing surface and heft of holding these monumental miniatures in your hand. How might it feel? Kotoko artists, living in the vicinity of Lake Chad, cast small figures in copper alloy through the lost-wax technique in order to produce personal amulets. Functioning as protective amulets, they may have once been worn around an owner’s neck, or carried by hand or in a small pouch. Held close to the body, they protected their owners against threats outward, and physical, or inward, in the form of anxiety and mental illness. The image of the equestrian and archer recalls a broader history of mounted warfare and exchange throughout the greater Western Sudan—an oft-disruptive history to which Kotoko communities were often subject.

Aloma reinforced and renewed a dynasty that would rule for 1,000 years.

• Aloma became mai (king) of Bornu during a period of famine and internal strife.
• A devout Muslim, Aloma returned to Mecca from the hajj with Turkish muskets and soldiers who helped him build his cavalry. He also built diplomatic alliances with Ottoman and Moroccan rulers.
• Aloma is remembered as a sensible ruler and administrative reformer who—through alliances and adherence to Islamic justice—made Bornu prosperous, prominent, and protected.

A lone woman clad in gold might walk [the empire’s roads] with none to fear but God.

—Ibn Fartuwa, chronicler of Idris Aloma’s reign, describing the security of the Bornu Empire

The king has company. In the once narrow world of comic book publishing, Marvel’s King T’Challa from Black Panther appeared to stand alone as the only widely recognized African superhero in the industry. Today, however, while T’Challa has been reinvigorated by a new set of stories written by Ta-Nehisi Coates and global film releases, he also has an increasing number of continental compatriots as African comics and graphic novels flourish. Each of these works invites readers to imagine the possibilities of new, Africa-centered futures.

He demanded the full recognition of his humanity—and expected that his comrades do the same.

• After serving in the Free French army in World War II, Fanon studied psychiatry, taking a position in French-ruled Algeria in 1953. There, he witnessed firsthand the traumatic effects of colonial violence on the human psyche.
• In books like Black Skin, White Masks (1952) and The Wretched of the Earth (1961), Fanon analyzed the psychological impacts of colonial rule, framing them as a form of violent domination of the psyche—but also as a set of tools that the colonized could take up and reverse in self-defense.
• Fanon also critiqued many postcolonial governments for their perceived dependence on former colonial powers and failures to build a national consciousness in their people.
• Fanon’s writings were inspirations to a global swathe of anticolonial and liberation movements in the second half of the 20th century—setting the struggle for freedom first in the psyche and the imagination.

He who is reluctant to recognize me opposes me.

—Frantz Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks

Imperialism leaves behind germs of rot which we must clinically detect and remove from our land but from our minds as well.

—Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth