São Tomé and Príncipe becomes independent

A military revolt in Portugal overthrew the authoritarian Estado Novo government. The regime change accelerated negotiations to end Portuguese rule in Africa, after long armed struggles by Angolan,...

The congress convenes in Tanzania, reconnecting formal Pan-African congresses with liberation struggles and debates over political economy. It included organizations and activists from Africa and...

Mozambique became independent after FRELIMO’s armed struggle and negotiations following the 1974 Portuguese revolution. Independence was a major liberation victory, but conflict, settler flight and...

Cabo Verde became independent from Portugal. The achievement reflected anticolonial organizing linked to Guinea-Bissau and demonstrated the transnational character of liberation movements across...

The Comorian parliament declared independence from France. The subsequent dispute over Mayotte and French control illustrates how decolonization could leave sovereignty contested across islands and...

Angola achieved independence as Portuguese rule ended, but rival liberation movements and external military interventions immediately shaped the new state’s trajectory. This was a liberation from...

Black students in Soweto protested the imposition of Afrikaans as a medium of instruction and the wider system of Bantu Education. Police violence transformed the protest into a national uprising...

Seychelles became independent from Britain. Its sovereignty added another island state to African continental institutions, illustrating the archipelagic breadth of African decolonization.

The Second World Black and African Festival of Arts and Culture opens in Lagos, bringing artists and intellectuals from Africa and the diaspora together. It presented cultural production as part of...

At its sixteenth ordinary session in Monrovia, OAU leaders adopted a declaration calling for national and collective self-reliance and a new international economic order. Its language challenged...