Black History

Contours of Connection: Exploring India–Africa Ties Through Memory, Movement, and Meaning

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│By Anushka Srivastava, Gale Ambassador at the University of Delhi, India│

India-Africa relations are strengthening in a new global scenario, driven by economic complementarity, strategic alignment, and a shared focus on multilateralism. In 2025, India strengthened its ties with Africa through several high-level visits. Prime Minister Narendra Modi undertook a significant five-nation tour in July 2025, in Ghana and Namibia, and President Droupadi Murmu made a historic visit to Angola in November 2025.

Understanding the long-standing relationship between India and Africa requires exploring the historical documents that shaped early contact, mobility, diplomacy, economic networks, and political exchange. For this, Gale Primary Sources offers unparalleled access to documents that illuminate how people, commodities, and ideas moved between the two regions.

This blog post traces these linkages through four lenses – historical, diplomatic, economic, and political – using illustrative citations from Gale Primary Sources collections.

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In the Footsteps of My Avô: Exploring Angola’s Fight for Independence Through Family History

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|Rosa Ferreira, Digital Product Trainer|

Armando Dias De Castro, my avô – my Portuguese grandfather – was a man full of life. He was warm, funny, always ready with a story or a joke. He was also the kindest man you’d ever meet. But when it comes to his time in Angola, I’ve got nothing. No stories, no memories. If he ever spoke about it, I must have been too small to notice, or the words just never stuck.

My uncle, however, recalls many conversations. That makes me believe my avô must have shared his experiences, at least in fragments, though they slipped past me.

It is this gap – between the grandfather I knew and the silence that lingers – that has drawn me into the archives.

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Revisiting South Africa through Gale Primary Sources

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│ By Tom English, Strategic Initiatives Manager – EMEA │

Was South Africa the first African state to gain independence from colonising powers or the last? This question is posed by Frank Welsh’s telling of the country’s colonial history in his book, A History of South Africa, and it speaks to the rich and complex nature of the country known as the rainbow nation.

If we want to make sense of, and make new discoveries about, a country as complex and dynamic as South Africa, we need to look at it from a range of perspectives. What are the different narratives of its inception? Who are its constituents? How do they see themselves in relation to their country? How did South Africa come to be as it is today? And what journey has the country been on in its long walk to freedom and beyond?

Gale Primary Sources collections give us the perspectives and insights that can help us to make sense of these questions and find some answers.

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From Chains to Change: The Differences Between African Slavery and the Trans-Atlantic Trade

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│By Rawan Mohamed, Gale Ambassador at the University of Leeds│

Slavery has been a pervasive institution throughout human history that has manifested into multiple forms across different societies. In Africa, indigenous systems of slavery pre-date the trans-Atlantic slave trade. However, the arrival of European powers and the subsequent demand for labour within the Americas transformed existing practices into a dehumanising enterprise. Delving into Gale’s Slavery and Anti-Slavery: A Transnational Archive enables us to uncover the distinct differences between indigenous African slavery and the trans-Atlantic slave trade and shed light on their enduring impacts upon entire societies.

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Who was the Chevalier de Saint-Georges?

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│By Carolyn Beckford, Gale Product Trainer│

Joseph Boulogne, later adopted as Chevalier de Saint-Georges, was born in Guadeloupe, a former French colony. He was a French violinist, conductor, composer, and a soldier.     

Boulogne was the first classical composer of African descent to attain widespread acclaim in European music. He composed an array of violin concertos, string quartets, sinfonia concertantes, violin duets, sonatas, symphonies, stage works, and opera comique. He was also a contemporary and rival of Mozart, although it’s likely that racism obscured his recognition as a great composer.

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Studying Colonialism in Complementary Archives: Nineteenth Century Collections Online and Decolonization

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│By Louis Venter, Gale Ambassador at the University of the Free State│

If you ask any seasoned historian what makes historical research unique, they will emphasise the crucial role of primary sources, which define and distinguish history from other forms of academic writing. In an ever-digitising world, historians can now access digital scans of genuine archival material from anywhere, eliminating the need to travel to distant archives, and making research more efficient.

Bringing together primary sources from multiple archives can enhance one’s research, and Gale Primary Sources offers two key complementary digital archives that can be used in tandem to study colonialism – Nineteenth Century Collections Online: Europe and Africa, Colonialism and Culture and Decolonization: Politics and Independence in Former Colonial and Commonwealth Territories.

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Celebrating South Africa’s Independence “Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika”

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│By Carolyn Beckford, Gale Product Trainer│

Archbishop Desmond Tutu, a prominent South African anti-apartheid activist and Nobel laureate, coined the phrase “Rainbow Nation” to describe his country.  South Africa is home to a wide range of ethnic, cultural, and linguistic groups, including indigenous African tribes, Afrikaans and English-speaking communities, and people of Indian and Asian descent. This post will explore the country’s complicated history and its journey to independence.

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Honouring Madam C.J. Walker: Using Gale Primary Sources to Represent Black Women’s Resistance to Racist American Beauty Standards

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│By Tabetha Wood, Gale Ambassador at Durham University│

As I approach the final term of my history degree, I feel particularly passionate about the empowerment of minority groups through a representation of their past experiences. I saw my dissertation as an opportunity to fuel this passion and by investigating the ‘whiteness’ of American beauty standards between 1945-60, I represented the adversity African American women encountered in this realm, an obstacle that women of colour continue to face today.

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Exploring the Rise of Black Consciousness in South Africa using Gale Primary Sources

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Anit-apartheid protest

│By Sasha Mandakovic, Gale Ambassador at Erasmus University, Rotterdam│

In the midst of finishing the final year of my Bachelor’s degree, I wrote a comparative analysis between the Black Consciousness Movement in South Africa and La Négritude, a literary black resistance movement in Senegal. Inspired by this, in this blog post I will be focusing on the rise of Black Consciousness in South Africa and what it sought to be. This topic is also of great personal relevance to me, as it delves into the experiences of individuals who share my own racial and cultural identity. Furthermore, as someone who has lived in West Africa and had the opportunity to visit South Africa, I find it truly captivating to delve into the nuances of this movement and acquire a more profound understanding of it.

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Decolonising the Literary Curriculum: A Close Examination of Derek Walcott’s Omeros

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Skyline of Cape Town, South Africa

|By James Carney, Senior Gale Ambassador at King’s College London|

Decolonisation refers to the process of attempting to undo the social, political, economic and cultural effects of imperialism on former colonies. Having just completed my undergraduate degree in English and Classical Literature at King’s College London, I have come to appreciate language and the written arts as potent mediums to contemplate, respond to and even resist the weight of colonial history.

My dissertation on Derek Walcott’s 1990 postmodern epic Omeros most thoroughly illustrated to me the nuances and creative potential of colonial victims to negotiate their present and historical standing in response to imperial agents. My exploration of this theme in Walcott’s work was particularly interesting as he ostensibly views colonisation as continuous, from nineteenth-century British and French empires to modern American capitalism, as the same force underlies both processes for the benefit of the typically white aristocracy, eclipsing native identity and homogenising Caribbean culture to artificiality.

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