Articles & Explainers
28 articles. Context, analysis, and the bigger picture.
The Voice That Crossed the Sea: Charlotte Maxeke and the Long Road Home
Before she was the Mother of Black Freedom in South Africa, she was a girl with a voice that filled concert halls in London. This is how a singer became a scholar, then a force the colonial state could not ignore.
The Secret Maps in Her Hair: How African Braids Carried Messages, Maps, and Freedom
Before there were letters or phones, African women were sending messages through braided patterns in their hair. Some of those patterns even mapped the way to freedom.
The Girl They Tried to Keep Hidden: The Story of Destiny Ayo Vaughan
Shipped from Nigeria to Ireland as a child with the promise of a better life, Destiny was held captive for five years. She was not supposed to survive. She was certainly not supposed to speak. She did both.
The Tignon Laws: When a Headwrap Became Resistance
In 1786, colonial Louisiana tried to control Black women by forcing them to cover their hair. They turned the restriction into one of history's most powerful fashion statements.
To the Mothers Who Gave Us Everything
A Mothering Sunday reflection on the African women who carried movements, raised revolutions, and wrote the truth, all while raising children who would inherit their courage.
The Revolution Is Uncomfortable. That's the Point.
Every generation of African women who pushed for change made people uncomfortable. The discomfort is not a flaw in the movement. It is proof that the movement is working.
They Didn't Call It Feminism Either
Most of the women who built the freedoms African women have today never used the word. That doesn't make what they did any less feminist.
What Your Timeline Won't Teach You
Social media has turned feminism into a debate. History tells a different story. One that is harder to argue with.
A Conversation With My Father
What happens when you tell your father you built a website about African women's history, and why the word 'feminism' keeps getting in the way of the actual conversation.
The Daughters of Independence: Women Who Fought for a Free Africa
Behind every African independence movement were women who organised, sacrificed, and fought, then were largely written out of the story. It is time to write them back in.