The Annual Black History Month Lecture: Dr. Howard W. French on The Second Emancipation

The Department of History presents the annual Black History Month lecture.

This keynote lecture will explore French’s argument that Africa had a pivotal role in shaping world history according to his groundbreaking recent book, The Second Emancipation: Nkrumah, Pan-Africanism, and Global Blackness at High Tide (Penguin Random House, 2025). The title—referring to a brief period beginning in 1957 when dozens of African colonies gained their freedom—positions this liberation at the center of a “movement of global Blackness,” with one charismatic leader, Kwame Nkrumah (1909–1972), at its head.

Biography

Howard W. French is a professor at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. He is also a former foreign correspondent and senior writer for The New York Times, having worked as a bureau chief in China, Japan, West and Central Africa and Central America and the Caribbean. 

Howard is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a global affairs columnist at Foreign Policy. He frequently contributes to the New York Review of Books.