New Publication from CURE Alumna Elara Bertho
In 1968, Miriam Makeba and Stokely Carmichael left the United States and made a new home in Conakry, the capital of socialist Guinea. As political exiles, the internationally renowned South African singer and the Black revolutionary activist chose to support Sékou Touré’s regime and his bold mission to decolonize minds.
Tracing this legendary couple of the global antiracist movement through their transatlantic journey, Elara Bertho’s book repositions Conakry within the broader map and shared history of global liberation struggles. In this African capital, Black radicalism, anti-imperial resistance, decolonial thought, and the dream of Pan-Africanism all found expression in a cultural policy aimed at broadcasting influence from Africa to the wider world.
This book was made possible by a research residency at the KHK CURE in 2024. The idea of reparation lies at the core of the project—not only because this postcolonial story has long been obscured, and because these personal archives deserve to be digitized and given proper recognition, but also because there is a need to decentre the history of these struggles by repositioning Conakry at the heart of intellectual cartographies.
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