Uganda Anti-Gay Law Met with Condemnation from US, UN

On June 1, Pres­i­dent Yow­eri Musev­eni, the auto­crat­ic and long-serv­ing leader of the African nation of Ugan­da, signed what is con­sid­ered one of the harsh­est anti-LGBTQ laws glob­al­ly. Some of the pun­ish­ments in the new law for Uganda’s found break­ing the law include a 20-year sen­tence, and cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment for repeat offend­ers and oth­er individuals…

Sierra Leone Independence Day

Coloradans Gather for Sierra Leone’s Independence Day Celebration

April 27 marked 62 years since the African nation of Sier­ra Leone attained its inde­pen­dence from Great Britain.  The local com­mu­ni­ty of Sier­ra Leoneans in Col­orado did not want this impor­tant his­tor­i­cal event to pass by silent­ly. So, they sent out invi­ta­tions, pre­pared dish­es, ordered a vari­ety of drinks, and gath­ered in the halls of…

‘Like no other’: The African Festival of Arts returns to Chicago this weekend — CBS News

CHICAGO (CBS) – This week­end, Wash­ing­ton Park on Chicago’s South Side will host one of the city’s most pop­u­lar and riv­et­ing events: the African Fes­ti­val of the Arts.It was side­lined for two years because of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic and, as CBS 2’s Jim Williams told us, the event returns this year under the ban­ner “Back to Cul­ture, Back to Tradition.“Dana East­er’s cre­ations are the result of painstak­ing and pre­cise work.“I dye it. I paint it. I print it. I silk screen it,” East­er said. “So, it is art, but it’s just to wear.“It’s called wear­able art and it’s on the backs of peo­ple around the world.

“I’ve had peo­ple say ‘I was in Lon­don and I saw your t‑shirt or I saw your out­fit. I knew it was Dana,’ ” she said.Williams: “This week though, you’re in one spot.Easter: “I’m in one spot, the African Fes­ti­val of the Arts.“The African Fes­ti­val of the Arts, which return this week­end after a two-year hia­tus, will fea­ture every con­ceiv­able expres­sion of Black cul­ture: paint­ings, sculp­tures, fash­ion, food and music.

“This fes­ti­val is very impor­tant to me,” said Dayo Laoye, an artist and Niger­ian native.The art fes­ti­val reflects the rich spir­it and tra­di­tions that artists like Laoye found in Chica­go when he moved to the city 32 years ago.“The African cul­ture for the last 400 years is still embed­ded in some part of Amer­i­ca and some peo­ple, espe­cial­ly here on the South and West Side in Chica­go,” he said. “So find­ing Africa here made me stay longer.“The African Fes­ti­val of the Arts, Laoye said, has helped cre­ate a big­ger mar­ket for the work of Black artists, includ­ing his own.“They rep­re­sent all the ges­tures of our moods as Black peo­ple in Amer­i­ca,” he said, adding, “Through this fes­ti­val, I was able to build my clientele.“Patrick Wood­tor found­ed the fes­ti­val 33 years ago and has watched it blos­som into a “nation­al attraction.”“This is like a fam­i­ly reunion every year,” Wood­ton said. “Every year and peo­ple come as far as Cal­i­for­nia, New York, Florida.”

And Wood­tor said it’s sparked sim­i­lar fes­ti­val across the country.“I’m so excit­ed about it,” said Easter.But this week­end, the cen­ter of the Black art world will be in Chicago’s Wash­ing­ton Park.“It’s just an excit­ing week­end for fam­i­ly, for art, enter­tain­ment,” East­er said. “It’s like no other.“CBS 2 is a proud media spon­sor of the fes­ti­val. It runs Fri­day through Mon­day, Labor Day, in Wash­ing­ton Park.For more infor­ma­tion on the event, vis­it aihafa.squarespace.com.

African art: One London museum’s agreement to return colonial artefacts could open the … — iNews

In April 1897, Fred­er­ick Horn­i­man, at the time Britain’s wealth­i­est tea trad­er and an avid col­lec­tor, was offered an oppor­tu­ni­ty he could not refuse. Through “estab­lished com­mer­cial sources and pri­vate col­lec­tions” he acquired 12 items of what was referred to as “Benin mate­r­i­al” for the mod­est sum of £30. Horn­i­man, a Quak­er whose par­ents had been part of the anti-slav­ery move­ment and who as a Lib­er­al MP cam­paigned for what became the wel­fare state, had become almost cer­tain­ly the first per­son in Britain to pur­chase items stolen bare­ly weeks ear­li­er from Benin City in an 18-day ram­page by 5,000 British troops sent to sack one of West Africa’s fore­most civil­i­sa­tions. Upon its return to the UK, the booty from the open­ly puni­tive raid was sold, both offi­cial­ly by the For­eign Office to recov­er the cost of the mil­i­tary oper­a­tion, and unof­fi­cial­ly by the troops them­selves, a num­ber of whom had been suf­fi­cient­ly com­fort­able with their loot­ing in present-day Nige­ria to be pho­tographed beside their hauls. Gen­tle­man afi­ciona­dos such as Horn­i­man would have been the sub­ject of many offers from these “pri­vate col­lec­tions” and in the next two years, the tea trad­er con­tin­ued to acquire 60 more objects emp­tied from the Benin citadel, among them orna­men­tal plaques telling sto­ries of trib­al his­to­ry and a key to the palace of the Oba, or king. Worth mil­lions but acquired for the equiv­a­lent of a few thou­sand pounds of mod­ern mon­ey, these “Benin bronzes” were put on dis­play among thou­sands of oth­er arte­facts in Horniman’s pala­tial home in the plush south Lon­don sub­urb of For­est Hill. Short­ly after 1901 a pur­pose-built muse­um on the site was bequeathed by the mag­nate to the then Lon­don Coun­ty Coun­cil for the “recre­ation, instruc­tion and enjoy­ment” of the capital’s pop­u­lace. Horniman’s goal, as he saw it, of “bring­ing the world” to a sub­ur­ban cor­ner of the British empire’s cap­i­tal was com­plete. A cen­tu­ry or so lat­er, the museum’s trustees, required to over­see and shape Horniman’s increas­ing­ly thorny lega­cy, this week record­ed anoth­er first in his name. More on British Muse­u­mAfter a two-year process of con­sul­ta­tion and eval­u­a­tion, it was announced that the 72 Benin bronzes are to be returned to Nige­ria, mak­ing the Horn­i­man the first major muse­um direct­ly fund­ed by the Depart­ment for Cul­ture, Media and Sport to under­take such a large-scale act of resti­tu­tion of colo­nial-era plun­der. The pledge to return the items was made all the more sig­nif­i­cant by the unvar­nished recog­ni­tion of wrong­do­ing that accom­pa­nied it. Eve Salomon, chair of the Horniman’s trustees said: “The evi­dence is very clear that these objects were acquired through force… It is both moral and appro­pri­ate to return their own­er­ship to Nige­ria.” Oth­er British insti­tu­tions have pre­vi­ous­ly under­tak­en small­er returns of Benin arte­facts, led by Aberdeen Uni­ver­si­ty and Jesus Col­lege, Cam­bridge last year. But there is a grow­ing view that the Horn­i­man Museum’s deci­sion – along­side a sim­i­lar announce­ment last week by Oxford and Cam­bridge uni­ver­si­ties to seek the return of 200 items to Nige­ria – is a water­shed moment in a resti­tu­tion cam­paign which has seen the slow ero­sion of a decades-long refusal by cul­tur­al insti­tu­tions (the UK hold­ings of Benin bronzes are held by 150 sep­a­rate bod­ies) to con­tem­plate the sur­ren­der of ill-got­ten gains. It is a fact which bears rep­e­ti­tion that near­ly 90 per cent of major African works of art and arte­facts are held out­side Africa, most of them in Europe.

Soda City Live: Traditional West African Dishes — WIS-TV

COLUMBIA, S.C. (WIS) — If you’ve nev­er had an oppor­tu­ni­ty to try West African food, there is a new restau­rant in the Mid­lands that spe­cial­izes in Ghanan dishes.Mimsy’s Restau­rant has some­thing for every­one, those who have meats in their diets and those who don’t with veg­an and veg­e­tar­i­an options.Today we tried some fresh veg­eta­bles, Jollof rice and Banku.Copyright 2022 WIS. All rights reserved.Notice a spelling or gram­mar error in this arti­cle? Click or tap here to report it. Please include the article’s headline.

Benin Bronzes Returned to Nigeria from Germany

Two of the renowned arti­facts were giv­en back to Nige­ria on Fri­day, and Ger­many intends to give the African coun­try own­er­ship of some 1,100 more. Ger­many returned two of the price­less arti­facts known as the Benin Bronzes to Nige­ria on Fri­day, after reach­ing a polit­i­cal agree­ment that could soon see hun­dreds more return to the country…