Thousands of children in Sierra Leone are paying for their own education or helping their families make ends meet by working as rock-breakers for the country’s construction industry. Labor is nothing new in Sierra Leone, but the brutal job of breaking stones with a hammer for hours on end in the baking heat has raised particular concern. Even for adults the work is extremely tough, and injuries are common. ...

The Roulhac Family Association, Inc., presents “Slave Genealogy of the Roulhac Family: French Masters and the Africans They Enslaved,” April 6 from 12:30-3 p.m. at Wayne County Community College District’s Downtown Campus’s Multi-Purpose Room 235, 1001 W. Fort, Detroit. ...

Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez died March 5 in the Military Hospital of Caracas after a long battle with cancer in his abdominal region, which was diagnosed in June 2011. ...

A video that went viral of South African police tying a man to the back of a pick-up truck and letting him drag along the ground, shocked nationals in both South Africa and Mozambique where the man, who later died of his injuries, was from. ...

Patrick Gaspard, a campaign operative for President Obama, former union chief with the Service Employees International Union and campaign aide to NYC Mayor David Dinkins, is President Obama’s nominee for ambassador to South Africa. Gaspard, with long Democratic Party credentials, including executive director of the Democratic National Committee, was born in the Democratic Republic of Congo to Haitian parent ...

On the heels of a State of the Union address by ANC President Jacob Zuma that critics felt was devoid of new ideas and uninspiring, a longtime anti-apartheid activist has come from the wings determined to unseat the ANC establishment, presenting fresh ideas and a new party. Mamphela Ramphele, informal wife of the late Black consciousness leader Steve Biko, lost no time in criticizing the incumbents. “Our so ...

The much-awaited swimsuit issue of Sports Illustrated magazine has waded into a public relations nightmare with its display of white, bikini-clad models prancing alongside Africans carrying spears or Chinese paddling rafts in cone-shaped hats. A panorama of the “seven continents” was promised in this year’s issue, but what readers actually got was an odd juxtaposition of scantily clad women vamping it up ne ...

Patrick Gaspard, a campaign operative for President Obama, former union chief with the Service Employees International Union and campaign aide to New York City Mayor David Dinkins, is President Obama’s nominee for ambassador to South Africa, it was announced last week. Gaspard, with long Democratic Party credentials, including executive director of the Democratic National Committee, was born in the Democrat ...

Eight contenders for the Kenyan presidency took off the gloves and dazzled TV viewers with their knowledge on a wide range of issues — from tribalism, health and education — as the crucial national election on March 4 nears. In the first-ever American-style TV debate, all condemned the ethnic feuding that tore the nation apart in 2007, leaving some 1,200 dead more than 300,000 displaced. Land disputes conti ...

Although the Spanish-American War (1898) is a well-known episode in U.S. history, few of us know that immediately following the end of hostilities with Spain, the USA initiated a war of colonization against the Philippines. Interestingly, Black America figured into this war in a very odd way. ...