Zimbabwe attains independence

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...

Nine majority-ruled southern African states formed SADCC to reduce economic dependence on apartheid South Africa and coordinate regional development. The project connected liberation solidarity with...

African governments adopt a plan emphasizing self-reliant development, regional cooperation and reduced dependence on external economic control. The plan challenged externally imposed development...

The OAU adopted the African Charter in Nairobi, placing individual rights alongside collective rights, peoples’ self-determination and development. The treaty was an African-authored normative...

The African Charter became binding on states that had ratified it. Its entry into force created a regional human-rights framework that recognized peoples’ rights and development, while the gap between...

Angola, Cuba and South Africa signed agreements in New York linking Cuban troop withdrawal, South African withdrawal from Angola and implementation of Namibian independence. The accord reflected...

F. W. de Klerk announced the unbanning of the ANC, PAC and Communist Party. The change followed decades of mass resistance, labor organizing, armed struggle and international pressure; it opened...