AFRICA THOUGHT – News features, commentaries, analyses, interviews & Op-ed. By Charles Watton Joseph Boakai was sworn in as Liberia’s 26th president on 22 January 2024. Boakai secured a six year term of office after defeating incumbent president George Weah in a keenly contested November 2023 poll with 50.9% of the votes cast. The west African country of five million people reached a major milestone on 17 November 2023, when Weah, of the Congress for Democratic Change, conceded defeat to the Unity Party candidate. Weah scored 49.1% of votes cast and lost the tight presidential run-off, which the EU described as “remarkably close and well administered”. Liberia has enjoyed 20 years of peace and relative stability since the end of a civil war that killed over 250,000 people and displaced Liberians across the world.

AFRICA THOUGHT – News features, commentaries, analyses, interviews & Op-ed. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. locks arms with his aides as he leads a march of several thousands to the court house in Montgomery, Ala., March 17, 1965. From left: Rev. Ralph Abernathy, James Foreman, King, Jesse Douglas, Sr., Black History Month is considered one of the nation’s oldest organized history celebrations, and has been recognized by U.S. presidents for decades through proclamations and celebrations. Here is some information about the history of Black History Month. How did Black History Month start? It was Carter G. Woodson, a founder of the Association for the Study of African American History, who first came up with the idea of the celebration that became Black History