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Today in 1987, Thomas Sankara was assasinated. #Rx

Today in 1987, Thomas Sankara was assasinated. #RxHistory⏳⁠
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On 15 October 1987, Burkina Faso’s first president, Thomas Sankara, was killed by an armed group alongside 12 other officials in a coup d’état organized by his former colleague, Blaise Compaoré. Sankara’s body was dismembered and buried in an unmarked grave while his widow and two children fled the country.⁠
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34 years after he was assasinated, Sankara’s murder trial began on 11 October 2021 in a military court in Ouagadougou. 14 men including Compaoré have been accused of his murder. ⁠
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As president, Sankara’s policies were oriented toward fighting corruption, promoting reforestation, promoting women’s empowerment, averting famine and making education and health national priorities. He even withdrew Burkina Faso from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank.⁠
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When Compaoré took over, he overturned nearly all of Sankara’s policies, reversed the nationalizations, rejoined the IMF and World Bank and ultimately rejected most of Sankara’s legacy. Compaoré remained in power for 27 years until he was overthrown by protests in 2014.⁠
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Although Sankara—who was 33 years old when he became president—was murdered at the young age of 37, he continues to be remembered as a martyr of Pan-Africanism. Thomas Sankara once said, ‘While revolutionaries as individuals can be murdered, you cannot kill ideas’.⁠
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Read more about Sankara’s revolutionary leadership at the link in our bio.⁠
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📝: Adams Adeosun and Tomisin Awosika⁠
📷: 1) President Thomas Sankara of Burkina Faso speaking at his press conference at UN Headquarters on 04 October 1984. UN PHOTO.⁠
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2) Marco Werman / PRI ⁠
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3)Thomas Sankara, Burkina Faso President, and Chairman of the Presidium of the USSR Supreme Soviet Andrei Gromyko greet each other before talks at the Moscow Kremlin. TASS / Getty Images.⁠
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4) Sankara and Fela. Fela was born this day in 1938. Unknown Photographer.

Today in 1938, Fela Anikulapo Kuti, was born. #RxH

Today in 1938, Fela Anikulapo Kuti, was born. #RxHistory⏳⁠
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On 15 October 1938, Nigerian musician and political activist, Fela Anikulapo Kuti was born in Abeokuta, Nigeria. Fela was a multi-talented instrumentalist, and a composer. ⁠
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Born into the Ransome-Kuti family, an upper middle class Nigerian family, he was the son of women’s rights activist, Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti, and Oludotun Ransome-Kuti, an Anglican priest. In 1958, Fela moved to London to study medicine but ended up attending a college of music instead.⁠
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In 1963, Fela returned to Nigeria where he formed a band, trained as a radio producer and performed with Victor Olaiya. He is widely regarded as the pioneer of the ‘Afrobeat’ music genre.⁠
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An advocate of pan-Africanism, his music became increasingly political until he was considered a dissenter. In the build up to the 1979 presidential election, Fela started a pro-citizens political party called the Movement of the People. However, his candidacy was refused.⁠
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He continued making music until the 1990s. In 1997, at the age of 58, Fela died from AIDS-related complications. Around a million people attended his funeral.⁠
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Today, Fela is immortalized in the arts of Nigerian and international artists who draw inspiration from the genre he pioneered and the life he lived. Felabration, an annual festival celebrating Fela’s legacy, attracts visitors from all over the world.⁠
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Read more about Fela by clicking the link in our bio. ⁠
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📝: Adams Adeosun and Tomisin Awosika⁠
📷: 1) Musician Fela Kuti performs at Orchestra Hall in Detroit, Michigan, in 1986. Leni Sinclair / Getty Images. ⁠
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2) Nigerian musician and composer Fela Kuti (1938-1997) performs at Vredenburg in Utrecht, Netherlands on 3rd November 1988. Frans Schellekens / Redferns.⁠
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3) Fela and Nigerian writer, Chinua Achebe. Unknown Photographer.⁠
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4) Fela and Burkina Faso’s Thomas Sankara. Sankara was assasinated this day in 1987. Unknown Photographer.

‘Where are the history books about women?’ #On

‘Where are the history books about women?’ #OnSite⚡⁠
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Essayist and playwright, Lanaire Aderemi, first realized that women were insufficiently represented in African history during a General Studies class in secondary school. She explains in our latest First Draft:⁠
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‘Every week, we were taught about Africans that made history. I remember in year nine, after several weeks of learning about war and military rule, my teacher randomly recounted events from the Aba Women’s Protest of 1929. I remember he described the women as rebellious and barbaric because they burnt colonial buildings. At that time, being “rebellious” was a very dirty word. I remember after the class, I rushed to the library, determined to read more about the Aba Women. I remember asking the librarian: “Where are the history books about women?” and I remember she was silent.’⁠
⁠
First Draft is our interview column, featuring authors and other prominent figures on books, reading, and writing. Read Aderemi’s interview by clicking the link in our bio.⁠
____________⁠
📝: Lanaire Aderemi⁠
📷: Ojima Abalaka

Today in 1981, Vice President Hosni Mubarak was el

Today in 1981, Vice President Hosni Mubarak was elected as the president of Egypt, one week after the assassination of Anwar Sadat. #RxHistory⏳

His presidency spanned a period of 30 years, beginning after the assassination of President Anwar Sadat on 6 October 1981, and lasting until the Egyptian revolution of January 2011. Mubarak was overthrown in a popular uprising as part of the broader Arab Spring movement.

His government saw the continuation of the policies pursued by his predecessor, including the liberalization of Egypt’s economy and a commitment to the 1979 Camp David Accords.

At the same time, his administration had a reportedly low human rights record. Many observers of the Mubarak government raised concerns about political censorship, police brutality, arbitrary detention, torture, and restrictions on freedoms of speech, association, and assembly.

In 2012, Mubarak was sentenced to life imprisonment over the deaths of some of the 900 protesters who were killed by security forces during the uprising in 2011. The charges against him were later overturned and he was released in 2017.

Mubarak died aged 91 on February 25 2020.
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📝: Adams Adeosun and Tomisin Awosika
📷: 1) Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak gives a speech in Cairo, 1982. Bill Foley.

2) On Oct. 6, 1981, Vice President Mubarak and President Sadat were watching a military parade when soldiers opened fire on them from a truck. Bill Foley / AP.

3) Sadat was assassinated in the shooting while Mubarak was wounded. Makaram Gad Alkareem / AFP /Getty Images.

4) British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher meets with Mubarak in London in 1985. AFP / Getty Images.

Agnes Tirop, a Kenyan Olympic star, has been found

Agnes Tirop, a Kenyan Olympic star, has been found dead. #RxNews📡⁠
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Yesterday, Kenyan Olympic runner and two-time world championship bronze medalist, Agnes Tirop, was found dead at her home in the western town of Iten, with stab wounds in her neck and abdomen. She was 25 years old.⁠
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According to Barnaba Korir, the chairperson of Athletics Kenya, who confirmed her death, she was allegedly stabbed to death by her husband, who has now gone missing and wanted for questioning by the police.⁠
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Last month, the 25-year-old athlete made history by breaking the world record in the women’s 10,000 metres event in Germany. Tirop crossed the finish line in 30:01 minutes, breaking the previous record of 30:29 which had been set by Morocco’s Asmae Leghzaoui in 2002. Reacting to her win, she said: ‘I’m so happy to have broken the world record. I felt the pace was good. The course was very good, too.’⁠
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Read more about Tirop in today’s newsletter, which goes out at 5 p.m. (WAT). Sign up at the link in our bio.⁠
______________⁠
📝: Tomisin Awosika, Junior Editor⁠
📷: 1) Kenya’s Agnes Jebet Tirop celebrates winning bronze in the women’s 10,000 metres final during day two of 17th IAAF World Athletics Championships Doha 2019 at Khalifa International Stadium on September 28, 2019 in Doha, Qatar. Alexander Hassenstein / Getty Images for IAAF.⁠
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2) Ejgayehu Taye of Team Ethiopia, Agnes Jebet Tirop of Team Kenya, and Yasemin Can of Turkey compete in the women’s 5000m round 1 on day seven of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games at Olympic Stadium on July 30, 2021 in Tokyo, Japan. Christian Petersen / Getty Images.

Hugh Masekela’s Musical Resistance. #OnSite⚡⁠
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Hugh Masekela was a South African musician and jazz pioneer, and was active from 1956 to 2016, the year he died. An activist, Masekela grew up in apartheid South Africa, in a township called Witbank, where according to Zimbabwean author, Karsten Noko, Masakela ‘faced an anti-Black government that dehumanized people and dispossessed people of their land.’ In our latest online essay, Noko, explains:⁠
⁠
Hugh Masekela grew up in 1940s Emalahleni, which was then called Witbank. In his biography, ‘Still Grazing’, Masekela described Witbank as a place where he faced police brutality, dispossession, discrimination, racism, violence, poverty, and exploitation. This description, however, could still be made of Emalahleni today. Similar could also be said about the living conditions in many colonial cities from Lagos to Nairobi to Harare to Cairo and, indeed, Johannesburg. It is these material conditions, which affected most Black people in urban areas, that turned Bra Hugh, as Masekela was fondly known, into a formidable enemy of the minority and racist government.⁠
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Read more about Hugh Masekela’s musical resistance by clicking the link in our bio.⁠
____________⁠
📝: Karsten Noko⁠
📷: 1) Jazz trumpeter, Hugh Masekela, performs onstage in 1968. Tom Copi / Michael Ochs Archives / Getty Images.⁠
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2) Hugh Masekela during a performance at the Manhattan Center in New York City. 11 March 1994. Jack Vartoogian / Getty Images.⁠
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3) South African trumpeter, Hugh Masekela, in concert, 17 February 2012. Judith Burrows / Getty Images.

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