In a sweltering monsoon afternoon in Xiaobei, in Guangzhou, a city in southeast China, a group of young and middle-aged African men take positions up and down a street lined by shops, alert to the passing of potential clients. Not far from them, in an adjacent street, another group of Africans—three women and a man ...

For centuries, unfinished materials for clothing manufacture—silk, cotton, hides—have been sold and shipped from Africa to the fashion capitals of the West, such as London, Paris and New York. In return, a small number of ready-to-wear clothes, cheap shoes and secondhand garments head back to Africa—at vastly marked-up prices or as charity donations. Now an ...

In the heart of Accra, Ghana’s capital, just a few meters from the United States embassy, lie the tombs of W. E. B. Du Bois, a great African-American civil rights leader, and his wife, Shirley. The founder of the US-based National Association for the Advancement of Colored People moved to Accra in 1961, settling in ...

It’s Sunday night at Aba House, an open-air bar in Lomé, Togo’s capital, and stylish young men and women in modern African dress fill the dance floor as the bass guitarist pumps up the tempo. Powerful! Soulful! The lyrics are in Mina, a local language in southern Togo and parts of neighboring Benin, but the ...

It’s a Sunday night at Aba House, an open-air bar in Lomé, the capital of Togo. Stylish young men and women dressed in modern African attire fill the dance floor as the bass guitarist picks up the tempo. Powerful! Soulful! The lyrics are in Mina, a local language spoken in southern Togo and parts of ...

As we enter into 2020, as a community, let’s reflect on a few things. Life is short but we can make it count for something bigger than ourselves—something that will outlive us. Something prosperity will remember you for. What is man, O Lord, that you’re so mindful of? You were created for something greater than ...