Reexamining Du Bois on Civil War and the General Strike

Black Reconstruction in America placed African people at the center of the struggle to end chattel slavery and create the conditions for building a genuine democratic system in the United States

By Abayomi Azikiwe, Editor, Pan-African News Wire

Wednesday February 25, 2026

African American History Month Series No. 7

Dr. W.E.B. Du Bois published a pioneering study on the United States Civil War (1861-65), its conclusion and the rise and fall of the efforts to build a democratic society. 

This book entitled “Black Reconstruction in America: An Essay Toward a History of the Part Which Black Folk Played in the Attempt to Reconstruct Democracy in America, 1860–1880,” was published initially in 1935 during the Great Depression.

Prior to the publication of this work, the field of Southern history including African enslavement, the Civil War and Reconstruction was dominated by white academics who were sympathetic to the Confederacy and the subsequent efforts to suppress and maintain domination over the nearly 4.5 million emancipated Black people. At the conclusion of the war in 1865, there were approximately 3.9 million Africans enslaved and another 500,000 considered free.

There were strong differences of opinion among the ruling class and its political operatives in Congress over how the U.S. could be reconstructed. Those who wanted the restoration of white supremacy through the national oppression of African Americans created their own mythology of the idyllic antebellum period and purported social equilibrium maintained by chattel slavery.

The political empowerment of African Americans through the passage of Constitutional Amendments and Civil Rights Bills in the late 1860s through the mid-1870s were portrayed by the Confederate sympathizers within academia, journalism and literary fiction as measures which fostered criminality, incompetence and the overall ineptitude of the formerly enslaved people. The only logical outcome, according to people such as Walter L. Fleming, William A. Dunning, etc., was the reintegration of the Confederate and slaveholding states on the political and economic basis of white supremacy. 

Du Bois within Black Reconstruction challenged the pro-slavery apologists by illustrating the central role of African Americans in the beginning of the war and its conclusion in favor of the Union. In a speech honoring the centenary of the birth of Du Bois on February 23, 1968 at Carnegie Hall in New York City, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. praised the work of Du Bois for refuting the racist propaganda so deeply rooted within the education and publishing industries. 

King emphasized in this speech:

“White historians had for a century crudely distorted the Negro’s (Black, African American) role in the Reconstruction years. It was a conscious and deliberate manipulation of history and the stakes were high. The Reconstruction was a period in which Black men had a small measure of freedom of action. If, as white historians tell it, Negroes wallowed in corruption, opportunism, displayed spectacular stupidity, were wanton, evil, and ignorant, their case was made. They would have proved that freedom was dangerous in the hands of inferior beings. One generation after another of Americans were assiduously taught these falsehoods and the collective mind of America became poisoned with racism and stunted with myths. Dr. Du Bois confronted this powerful structure of historical distortion and dismantled it.” (https://emergingcivilwar.com/2022/01/27/mlk-on-how-the-dunning-school-distorted-the-echoes-of-reconstruction/)

In the third decade of the 21st century in the U.S. the dominant capitalist party is committed to reinforcing this false narrative of the Civil War and therefore the entire history of the country. Du Bois and other writers and activists of their generations were able to carve out an approach which relied on the actual material history of the Civil War and Reconstruction.

The General Strike and Its Meaning

Perhaps one of the most groundbreaking chapters in Black Reconstruction frames the African American contribution to the defeat of the Confederacy by the withholding of their labor on a mass level once the war began. The phenomenon was soon brought to the attention of the Union army and the White House. 

Designated as “contraband”, the presence of runaway enslaved persons deprived the Confederacy of its main source of profit and therefore weakened its ability to wage war against the Union forces. In many accounts of the Civil War, the critical role of African people is routinely ignored. 

In the chapter entitled The General Strike, Du Bois notes:

“Every step the Northern armies took then meant fugitive slaves. They crossed the Potomac, and the slaves of northern Virginia began to pour into the army and into Washington. They captured Fortress Monroe, and slaves from Virginia and even North Carolina poured into the army. They captured Port Royal, and the masters ran away, leaving droves of Black fugitives in the hands of the Northern army. They moved down the Mississippi Valley, and if the slaves did not rush to the army, the army marched to the slaves. They captured New Orleans and captured a great Black city and a state full of slaves.” 

The abandonment of the plantations by hundreds of thousands combined with the victories of the Union forces in critical areas of the Confederacy sealed the fate of the secessionists. Programs were initiated in the important agricultural and shipping locations which were designed to foster the Union cause. 

Du Bois pointed out in this same chapter on the General Strike that due to the withdrawal of labor power along with the rapid recruitment of Black soldiers into the Union forces, the demise of legal enslavement was inevitable. All along the question of the role and status of African Americans after the War remained.

In the closing lines of the chapter, the author wrote:

“In August (1862), Lincoln faced the truth, front forward; and that truth was not simply that Negroes ought to be free; it was that thousands of them were already free, and that either the power which slaves put into the hands of the South was to be taken from it, or the North 

could not win the war. Either the Negro was to be allowed to fight, or the draft itself would not bring enough white men into the army to keep up the war.” 

Of course, after the failure of Reconstruction and the adoption of lynch law and legalized segregation, the exploitation and national oppression of African Americans would continue with the full backing of the state. Nonetheless, resistance would continue as well under the new circumstances. There were organizations formed to protest lynching and Jim Crow legislation. A series of legal challenges to segregation and racial discrimination would eventually eliminate restrictive covenants, schooling based on skin color and access to previously prohibited sectors of the labor market. 

The horrendous conditions imposed on African Americans during the first half of the 20th century fueled the Great Migration. Even though millions of African Americans would relocate to the northern and western regions of the U.S. seeking a better life in response to industrialization, they were again thrust into intense working-class politics. 

Black Reconstruction was published in 1935 during the wave of general strikes in various regions of the U.S. The role of African American labor in the workforce and the unions would become a central element in the struggle to end class oppression and institutional racism. 

General Strikes from 1934 to 2026

In light of developments in Minneapolis in January where the majority of the people in the municipality mobilized to demand the withdrawal of ICE from the city, the idea and definition of the use of general strikes has been very much in discussion. During this fight, two people were murdered in cold blood by federal agents deployed to Minnesota by the administration of President Donald Trump.

Some viewed the events in Minneapolis which brought together the trade unions, small businesses, many of which were owned by immigrants, progressive clergy, people of color communities, youth, etc., as reminiscent of the general strike of 1934 in Minneapolis which led to the Teamsters becoming a powerful force within the labor movement.

Strikes were also held in San Francisco in the same year which lasted for more than two months resulting in the injuring and deaths of workers. In the South, the textile industry witnesses widespread work stoppages that were met with violent brutality and repression by the bosses and politicians. 

Out of these industrial actions, the Committee on Industrial Organization (CIO) was formed in 1935 saying it was committed to the organization of low-wage, unskilled and African American workers. During 1934 amid the wave of strikes, the Southern Tenant Farmers Union (STFU) was created in response to the food deficits and mass evictions by landowners amidst the Great Depression.

However, other issues would interfere in the political capacity of the unions to address the broader interests of the working class and oppressed. The advent of the Second Imperialist War and the subsequent Cold War impacted the trade union movement.

The specter of communism and national liberation was promoted by the ruling class as a greater threat to U.S. workers than monopoly capitalism and imperialist war. In the present period, the working-class organizations must fight for jobs and better conditions of employment. However, these economic demands cannot be achieved absent of the liberation of migrants, impoverished workers and the nationally oppressed.

The general strike is not an end unto itself. The overall objectives of the current period must be centered in the struggle to end national oppression, gender domination and the gross exploitation of labor.  

Widening Rift Between Eritrea and Ethiopia Sparks Fear of New Conflict

Ethiopia and Eritrea say they are preparing for the possibility of war, with landlocked Ethiopia's claim it needs access to the Red Sea seen as a provocation by Eritrea. As tensions build, violence is escalating on their shared border in the Tigray region.

22/02/2026 - 17:26

By Melissa Chemam

In January, Ethiopian police said they had seized thousands of rounds of ammunition sent by Eritrea to rebels in Ethiopia's Amhara region.

Eritrea denied the allegation, and said Ethiopia was using it to justify starting a war.

The regime "is floating false flags to justify the war that it has been itching to unleash for two long years," Eritrea's Information Minister Yemane Gebremeskel told news agencies.

Eritrea's President Isaias Afwerki said in an interview earlier in February with state-run media that Ethiopia had declared war on his country.

He added that Eritrea did not want war but knows "how to defend [its] nation".

Historical feud

Eritrea broke away from Ethiopia in 1993, after a series of insurgencies and wars starting from 1961. The two countries went to war against each other from 1998 to 2000, which was followed by a border conflict that lasted for nearly two decades.

They finally agreed to normalise relations in 2018 – an agreement that won Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed the Nobel Peace Prize the following year.

However, the fragile peace deal has since given way to renewed threats and acrimony. 

In Tigray, a region in Ethiopia on the border with Eritrea, a war that erupted in 1975 has been reactivated multiple times – most recently from November 2020 to the end of 2022.

The conflict was reignited in January, as the issues underlying the conflict resurfaced.

"I think one has to start with the Tigray war, with the consequences of the war and the rift that the post-war period and the Pretoria agreement has created between the federal government of Ethiopia and their Eritrean leadership," an Addis Ababa-based security analyst, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told RFI.

Eritrea has been trying to get closer to the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF) recently, leading to a feud with Addis Ababa. 

"There is information circulating that Eritrean troops have gotten deeper into Tigray, even nearing the capital, Mekelle," the security analyst said. "They station [themselves] at some of the checkpoints around that area." 

An insurgency movement in the neighbouring Amhara region could be impacted as well by "the security vacuum that has unfolded following the partial withdrawal of security forces and the Ethiopian National Defense Forces from the region," the analyst said. 

Red Sea access

The tensions between Eritrea and Ethiopia have many other unresolved roots. Ethiopia's anger at Eritrea's independence stems in part from the fact that this resulted in it losing its access to the Red Sea, as Eritrea sits along the coastline.

"Ethiopia is a much larger country than Eritrea... and Ethiopia has every right to say, listen, we're going on 120 million people, we need sea access," Clionadh Raleigh, director of the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data organisation and a professor of African politics and conflict at the UK's University of Sussex, told RFI.

Eritrea, she said, is less densely populated, and led by an old dictator. "The Isaias Afwerki regime is something that people cannot wait to see end. And Addis is still hoping to reintegrate it into a larger Ethiopia, potentially within the next generation."

Eritrea regularly accuses the Ethiopian government of threats of military action to regain access to the Red Sea. Abiy has also tried to gain access via a deal with Somaliland, another breakaway region that is destabilising the equilibrium of power within of the Horn of Africa.

But Abiy insists that Ethiopia is not seeking conflict with Eritrea and wants to address the issue of access through dialogue.

The Ethiopian analyst said this is particularly strategically important to the current leadership, which aspires to play a greater regional role and address its geopolitical and strategic vulnerabilities – stemming from lack of access to the Sea. 

Wider regional instability

The war in Sudan is also contributing to worsening relations, as Eritrea supports the Sudanese army, along with Egypt and Saudi Arabia, against the paramilitary RSF, which many accuse Ethiopia of supporting.

According to Raleigh, there will be no stability in the Horn of Africa for some time to come.

"Ethiopia is desperate to change, and they do not expect this process to be victimless or peaceful. It has allied itself to both the United Arab Emirates and Israel, against a Saudi-Egyptian-Sudanese coalition, with Somalia somehow," she said.

As Ethiopia and Eritrea appear to be moving towards conflict, the peace-building agency International Crisis Group has recommended de-escalation steps to avoid direct hostilities – whether these are accidental or, as many fear, the result of Ethiopian aggression.

"Either scenario would be a disaster for the Horn of Africa and its vicinity, potentially drawing in neighbours and non-African powers, particularly from the Arab Gulf," the group wrote in its latest report.

The Growing Threat of conflict in the Horn of Africa

Tigray’s elite has become deeply split, with every policy issue – from IDP returns to demobilisation – framed through the lens of factional allegiance.

Daniel Berhane

Journalist and author

Ammunition is seen next to a tank destroyed in a fight between the Ethiopian National Defence Force (ENDF) and the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF) forces in Kasagita town, Afar region, Ethiopia, February 25, 2022.

Tiksa Negeri/Reuters

A tank destroyed in fighting between the Ethiopian federal army and Tigrayan Defence Forces in Kasagita, Afar region, 2022.

ADDIS ABABA

Clashes last month in two Tigrayan districts between the federal army and Tigrayan forces could be the first steps towards a wider war that has been frozen for the past three years by a shaky ceasefire.

Following the skirmishes in Tselemti, in southwestern Tigray, and Wajirat in the southeast, the federal government has moved several army divisions towards the Tigray border. It has also blocked the bank accounts of selected ruling Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) officials.

In anticipation of trouble ahead, people in the regional capital, Mekelle, have been stocking up on groceries, and long queues have formed at banks. Many shop owners, worried about disruptions to online networks, now refuse digital payments, while Ethiopian Airlines has cancelled all flights to the region.

There is a broader international dimension to the tensions. Were war to break out, there are fears it would also drag in neighbouring Sudan, as well as governments in the Gulf and Red Sea region – with even larger humanitarian repercussions.

Who is who?

The current domestic friction reflects a dramatic re-jigging of the political and military alliances of the 2020-22 Tigray war, when federal forces and Eritrean troops – backed by Amhara paramilitaries – marched against the TPLF-led regional administration. 

That coalition has since collapsed. Eritrea was critical of the November 2022 Pretoria ceasefire accord, but fell out even more significantly with landlocked Ethiopia over Addis Ababa’s demand for a port – especially when Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed identified Eritrea's Red Sea Assab facility as a potential candidate.

Both sides have also been vying for influence in a politically divided Tigray. For much of the past two years, that has played out over control of the Tigray Interim Regional Administration (TIRA), set up under the ceasefire agreement as a first step towards Tigray’s re-inclusion in the federation.

The jostling for influence is broadly represented by two rival camps led by TPLF chair Debretsion Gebremichael – seen as aligned with Asmara – and his former deputy, Getachew Reda, who is now an adviser to Abiy.

Neither has Amhara escaped the discord. Thousands of the Amhara region’s paramilitary troops refused to accept disarmament demanded by Addis Ababa in 2023 and formed an insurgent group, Fano, that inflicted a string of blows against the federal army. Conversely, in western Tigray, Amhara paramilitaries known as the Tekeze Guard serve as auxiliaries to federal forces.

What’s gone wrong? 

The federal government framed the Tigray conflict as a law‑enforcement operation, but its wartime allies used it to seize territory they lay claim to. Under the Pretoria peace deal, Amhara forces were called on to withdraw from western and southern Tigray, and Eritrean troops to vacate the border districts of northern Tigray.

The federal government, however, refused to enforce those stipulations. It instead insisted on directly controlling the disputed areas until a referendum could be held, with Amhara exercising de facto administrative control. Addis Ababa has in effect normalised the new status quo, entrenching the territorial and demographic changes created by the war.

Fearing violence and intimidation, that deadlock has prevented more than a million displaced Tigrayans from returning to their home villages.

A compromise was forged in early 2024, prioritising the return process over the issue of territorial restoration. Under the framework, the federal army was supposed to assume all security responsibilities, dismantle illegal settlements, and disarm armed groups. Local governance would be organised through town hall meetings, with pre‑war police officers and militias reinstated. 

After a rocky implementation in the southern districts it was halted. A governmental commission reported that the returnees to Tselemti faced physical assault by pro-Amhara region militia, and their homes or farmlands remained occupied by settlers. In western Tigray, the Tekeze Guard – constituted by perpetrators of the ethnic cleansing during the war – publicly characterises the displaced Tigrayans as fugitives and insists that recognising Amhara’s territorial claim is a prerequisite for a peaceful return. 

The Tselemti predicament was presented by the president of TIRA as the reason for last month’s clash between the paramilitary Tigray Defence Forces (TDF) and the Ethiopian army.

Disarmament is another area of concern – symptomatic of a poorly institutionalised peace process. There was optimism in the initial stages in 2023, with state media reporting that the TDF were handing in their heavy equipment, but then began alleging the TDF was retraining some of their forces, and heavy weapons had been hidden.

Meanwhile, a cash-strapped demobilisation process was also badly off-track. Tigrayan officials argued that the peace deal stipulated full demobilisation was to go hand in hand with the removal of all non‑federal forces from western Tigray and the “restoration of Tigray’s constitutional territory and the full return of IDPs".

Divisions within the TPLF

Shortly after the Pretoria ceasefire, the TPLF became ensnared in a power struggle between a faction led by Debretsion and a rival group behind TIRA’s inaugural president, Getachew. At the root of this conflict lies a post-war legitimacy crisis and a fundamental divergence over where ultimate authority resides.

Given the TPLF’s historically centralised governance model, the dispute over control of TIRA is existential. Losing control would undermine its electoral prospects and weaken its bargaining leverage vis-à-vis the federal government.

When Abiy endorsed Getachew as TIRA president, Debretsion’s faction dug in to try and maintain control. To garner domestic support, it framed the dispute as a confrontation with Addis Ababa – the popular villain. In March last year, armed TDF officers took over TIRA offices, and Getachew and his allies fled the region.

They have since formed a new opposition party backed by Addis Ababa. An armed group, the Tigray Peace Force (TPF), has also emerged with the objective of unseating the TPLF, and operates across Tigray’s southeastern border in the Afar region. Last October, when the TDF advanced towards the TPF’s base, they were countered by drone strikes from the federal army.

Both Tigray factions have preyed on the public’s pain and post-war aspirations, squandering the momentum of the peace process. Tigray’s elite has become deeply split, with most policy issues – from IDP returns to demobilisation – framed through the lens of factional allegiance.

Alignment and re-alignment

The shift in the strategic landscape is nowhere better illustrated than a letter the Ethiopian government sent in June 2025 to the UN secretary-general alleging an imminent joint attack by the TDF, the Eritrean army, and Fano on western Tigray. 

In a follow-up letter in October, Addis Ababa alleged that TDF commanders had participated in an offensive by Fano to capture Woldiya, a major town in northeastern Amhara. In the past few weeks, Ethiopia has also claimed to have intercepted weapons shipments from Tigray to Fano, and issued an ultimatum to Eritrea.

My enemy’s enemy seems to be the organising principle. Fano regards Abiy’s government as an existential threat to the Amhara people, justifying an alliance with any actor, including the TPLF – its opponent during the last war.

Eritrea now gets a pass from the TPLF, despite the Eritrean army’s war atrocities and continued occupation of Tigrayan districts. If conflict is to come with Addis Ababa, an alliance with Asmara enables the TPLF to escape the encirclement it fears.

By late 2025, these new relationships were reportedly formalised with trilateral meetings held inside Sudan, within territory controlled by the government of President Abdel Farrah al-Burhan.

The externalisation of the dispute is an increasingly dangerous element. Al-Burhan receives military and diplomatic support from Eritrea and Egypt as he battles his rival, General “Hemedti” Dagalo, who heads the Rapid Support Forces. Dagalo in turn is backed by the United Arab Emirates, with recent reports alleging an Emirati-financed training camp for Sudanese rebels in Ethiopia’s western region.

Addis Ababa, meanwhile, has antagonised Somalia by inching towards recognising breakaway Somaliland in return for a lease on the port of Berbera and a military base. Israel’s recent recognition of Somaliland has exacerbated those regional tensions, drawing rebukes – and unease  – from Saudi Arabia and Türkiye.

What happens next?

With no sign yet of a diplomatic off-ramp, and as military preparedness by Ethiopian federal forces, the TDF, and Eritrea gathers pace, here are four potential scenarios to consider.

Scenario 1: Addis Ababa seeks to eliminate TPLF

The federal army’s troop build-up along Tigray’s borders could be an intensification of Addis Ababa’s existing pressure tactics, seeking to trigger mass protests or a palace coup within Tigray’s leadership by restricting fuel supplies, suspending budget finance transfers, and supporting dissenters. 

The capitulation of the TPLF would fracture the current three-way alliance, in which Tigray serves as the geographic land bridge. 

However, this gradual approach doesn’t justify the scale of the current military mobilisation, especially as it’s drawing forces away from other critical areas such as Amhara, where Fano operates.

Scenario 2: Assab is the goal

Addis Ababa’s objective in Tigray could include its goal to possess Assab. However, a military offensive on the port would be difficult. Getting to Assab, which borders the Afar region, would involve navigating rugged terrain and the Eritrean military is well dug in.

Hence, a parallel operation closer to Eritrea’s heartland – accessible only through Tigray – to compel Eritrean forces to relinquish their trenches and extensive military presence around Assab would be necessary.

This scenario puts the federal army in a simultaneous collision with both Eritrean and Tigrayan forces. Yet, Addis Ababa might deem that unavoidable if it believes the two are in a concrete military alliance. 

Scenario 3: Eritrea/TDF take the initiative

Ethiopia’s build-up could be anticipatory. Addis Ababa has long claimed that Eritrean and TDF forces were entering the final stages of planning for a joint offensive. Statements by Eritrean and TPLF officials suggest at least tacit coordination, if not military cooperation.

Such an offensive would likely target the federal army bases in the Gondar-western Tigray corridor or the Afar region. However, pushing farther south would stretch supply lines, making Eritrea-TDF forces vulnerable to choke points and counter-offensives.

This scenario assumes the federal government is at its weakest and ripe for overthrow. When the TPLF made a similar assessment in late 2021, Abiy’s government proved resilient, mobilising massive new recruits and deploying armed drones effectively.

Scenario 4: Diplomatic breakthrough, but multiple spoilers

The final scenario is a diplomatic breakthrough that cools tensions. However, Addis Ababa has raised the political stakes through its national security rhetoric, allusion to port annexation, and sustained military mobilisation – de-escalation now could be seen as retreat.

Reaching acceptable terms would be difficult. Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki prioritises strategic depth rather than diplomatic assurances. A détente would diminish the influence inside Ethiopia that Eritrea’s current alliances provide.

The TPLF leadership is unlikely to trust mediators over its current alliances and submit to disarmament, given heightened threats to its survival. Disarmament, particularly, without restoration of western Tigray, would undermine its resistance narrative and strain its internal cohesion.

None of these probable scenarios offer a clear path to victory for any actor. 

What is clear is that a return to the post-ceasefire calm is now highly improbable. However the situation unfolds, the peace process will be further complicated with new grievances and alignments that could prove hard to disentangle.

Edited by Obi Anyadike.

UK Understands Ethiopia’s Quest for Sea Access: Ambassador Welch

Addis Ababa, February 24, 2026 (ENA) –The United Kingdom’s Ambassador to Ethiopia, Darren Welch, says Ethiopia’s aspiration to secure access to seaports for its growing economy is understandable and should be addressed through peaceful dialogue.

In his recent interview with Pulse of Africa, Ambassador Welch said: “So look, I come from a country which has 51 major ports and more than 120 other ports. So I approach this issue with some humility,” he said. 

“The United Kingdom, of course, is a major seafaring trading nation with deep roots in its maritime and naval traditions. So we understand the desire to be connected to the world for trade,” the ambassador noted.

Currently, many are urging parties in the region to engage in constructive and peaceful dialogue to address Ethiopia’s growing demand for access to seaports.

Ambassador Welch echoed the position of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed and the Ethiopian government, who have consistently emphasized negotiation as the appropriate path forward.

“As the Prime Minister and the government have said, the objective should be pursued through peaceful dialogue and negotiations,” he noted. 

He further encouraged all sides to focus on de-escalation efforts to maintain stability in the Horn of Africa.

After losing direct access to the sea in 1993, Ethiopia has since relied primarily on neighboring ports for its international trade. 

Despite being Africa’s second-most populous nation, the country has sustained rapid economic growth, with expanding manufacturing and agricultural exports increasing demand for reliable and diversified maritime access.

With a population projected to surpass 150 million in the coming years, Ethiopia’s development trajectory has intensified discussions about securing sustainable sea outlets. 

Meanwhile, the coastline stretching from Massawa to Mogadishu spans roughly 5,000 kilometers along the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean, serving countries whose combined population is significantly smaller.

Ambassador Welch said his country understands Ethiopia’s perspective.

 “I can understand why a country of Ethiopia’s size and growing economy would want to diversify its access to commercial ports,” he stated.

Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has repeatedly stressed that Ethiopia’s quest for sea access is rooted in peaceful negotiation and mutual benefit. 

The government has indicated openness to arrangements based on give-and-take principles, including economic partnerships, investment cooperation, and potential shareholding frameworks in strategic national assets such as Ethiopian Airlines or the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, as well as other innovative mechanisms agreed upon by sovereign states.

The United Kingdom is also engaged in practical initiatives aimed at strengthening Ethiopia’s port connectivity. 

“In fact, the United Kingdom is supporting work at the Port of Berbera and supporting a transit transport agreement to make sure that goods can flow more readily between that port and Ethiopia,” Ambassador Welch said.

The Port of Berbera has increasingly been viewed as an alternative trade corridor for Ethiopia.

Reaffirming the UK’s position, the ambassador concluded: “We understand the desire, we come from a deep tradition of seafaring and global trade, but we would always argue that any differences, any tensions, must be negotiated peacefully.”

Crisis-levels of Hunger in Somalia More Than Double, Say UN-backed Experts

By AFP

Somalia

The number of people in Somalia experiencing crisis-levels of food insecurity has nearly doubled in the past year to 6.5 million people, UN-backed experts warned Tuesday

The Horn of Africa country has been plagued by conflict and suffered two consecutive failed rainy seasons, as well as a drop in the amount of food aid available amid international funding cuts.

The population classified as being in a "crisis or worse" situation "has nearly doubled between February–March 2026 to a staggering 6.5 million people since early 2025," according to the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification Initiative (IPC), a UN-backed group that monitors hunger and malnutrition.

That includes more than two million people now in Phase 4, the "emergency" category, one step away from the "catastrophic" level, equal to famine, an IPC report said.

An estimated 1.84 million children under five are at risk of acute malnutrition in 2026, including 483,000 severe cases that require urgent treatment, the IPC said.

"This alarming deterioration is driven by worsening drought, rising food prices, and insecurity across central, southern, and parts of northern Somalia," the report added.

"The situation is compounded by declining humanitarian assistance."

The UN's World Food Programme (WFP) warned Friday it would have to stop humanitarian assistance in Somalia by April if it did not receive new funding.

The Rome-based agency said it had already been forced to reduce the number of people receiving emergency food assistance from 2.2 million in early 2025 to just over 600,000 today.

In January, the United States suspended aid to Somalia following the destruction of a US-funded WFP warehouse in the capital Mogadishu's port.

The US announced a resumption of WFP food distribution on January 29.

However, all UN agencies have warned of serious funding shortfalls since Washington began slashing aid following President Donald Trump's re-election last year.

Levels of acute malnutrition in Somalia have risen for two consecutive years, the IPC report said.

Rainfall from April to June is likely to be near normal in most areas and above-normal in some, but "this will likely lead to only a modest improvement in overall food security."

Prime Minister Abiy Holds Talks with Zionist President Isaac Herzog

Addis Ababa, February 25, 2026 –Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed held talks this afternoon with Isaac Herzog during the latter’s official working visit to Ethiopia.

President Herzog arrived in Addis Ababa in the early hours of Wednesday morning for a scheduled diplomatic engagement aimed at strengthening bilateral relations between the two nations.

Following their discussions, Prime Minister Abiy wrote on social media pages that: “I welcomed President Isaac Herzog of Israel today for productive discussions during his official visit. We explored the relations between Ethiopia and Israel and considered ways to improve collaboration in areas of mutual interest.”

The talks focused on enhancing cooperation across key sectors and reinforcing the longstanding ties between Ethiopia and Israel.

In a gesture underscoring historical respect and diplomatic goodwill, President Herzog began his visit with a trip to the Adwa Victory Memorial Park, paying tribute to Ethiopia’s enduring spirit of independence and the historic victory of Adwa.

The visit marks another step forward in the growing partnership between Ethiopia and Israel, reflecting both countries’ commitment to deepening diplomatic and strategic cooperation.

Zionist President Isaac Herzog Arrives in Addis Ababa for Official Visit

Addis Ababa, February 25, 2026 (ENA) – President of Israel, Isaac Herzog, arrived in Addis Ababa in the early hours of this morning for an official visit aimed at strengthening diplomatic ties between the two nations.

Upon his arrival at Bole International Airport, President Herzog was warmly received by Ethiopia’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Gedion Timothewos, and State Minister Ambassador Berhanu Tsegaye.

During his visit, President Herzog is scheduled to hold high-level talks with senior government officials of Ethiopia. 

Discussions are expected to focus on enhancing bilateral cooperation across key sectors and reinforcing the longstanding relationship between the two countries.

Israeli President Isaac Herzog Pays Tribute to Ethiopian Valour at Adwa Victory Memorial

Addis Ababa, February 25, 2026 –President of Israel, Isaac Herzog, arrived in Addis Ababa in the early hours of Wednesday morning for a working official visit. 

In an act of historical acknowledgement and diplomatic friendship, the President commenced his stay by visiting the Adwa Victory Memorial Park to honor the enduring spirit of Ethiopian independence.

Upon his arrival at the Adwa Victory Memorial, President Isaac Herzog was guided through the museum that serve as a testament to the resilience of the Ethiopian people. 

The gesture underscores the deep respect the State of Israel holds for Ethiopia’s long-standing history as a symbol of liberty and sovereignty.

TheVictory of Adwa, represents a watershed moment in world history. 

By defeating an invading colonial force, Ethiopia secured its position as a beacon of freedom, inspiring independence movements across the African continent and among the global black community. 

 The memorial where the President stood today serves not only as a site of remembrance but as a physical manifestation of the unity and bravery that defined the Ethiopian empire during its most critical hour.

Earlier this morning, President Isaac Herzog was accorded a warm reception at Bole International Airport. He was welcomed by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Gedion Timothewos, alongside State Minister Ambassador Berhanu Tsegaye and other senior government officials. 

The arrival marks a new chapter in the multifaceted relationship between the two nations, which is rooted in ancient cultural ties and modern strategic cooperation.

During his visit, President Isaac Herzog is expected to hold extensive discussions with senior government officials. 

These high-level talks are aimed at further strengthening the bilateral relations between Ethiopia and Israel.

Herzog in Ethiopia as Israel Expands Footprint in Divided Horn of Africa

February 25, 2026

Israeli President Isaac Herzog meets Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed in Addis Ababa amid Israel’s expanding push in the Horn of Africa. (Design: Palestine Chronicle)

By Palestine Chronicle Staff  

Herzog’s Ethiopia visit follows Israel’s Somaliland move, intensifying geopolitical fractures in the Horn of Africa.

Key Developments

Israeli President Isaac Herzog begins a two-day official visit to Ethiopia on February 24-25.

The trip follows Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s recent visit to Addis Ababa.

Israel’s recognition of Somaliland in December 2025 reshaped Horn of Africa geopolitics.

Ethiopia’s role as African Union host and Nile Basin actor makes it central to Israeli strategy.

Türkiye and African states warn against foreign militarization of the Horn.

Israel seeks to break diplomatic isolation following the Gaza genocide by expanding African ties.

Herzog in Addis

Israeli President Isaac Herzog arrived in Ethiopia for a two-day official visit on February 24-25, meeting President Taye Atske Selassie and Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed as part of Israel’s renewed push to expand its footprint in Africa.

The visit comes at a highly sensitive moment. It follows directly after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s state visit to Addis Ababa, highlighting intensifying competition for influence in the Horn of Africa.

Israeli officials have framed the trip as strengthening “historic bonds of friendship” and expanding cooperation with African nations. Herzog’s office emphasized long-standing diplomatic and cultural ties, including the historic migration of Ethiopian Jews to Israel.

But the geopolitical subtext is unmistakable. Ethiopia is not only a regional heavyweight and host of the African Union, but also a key actor in Red Sea and Nile Basin politics. Securing deeper ties with Addis Ababa serves Israel’s broader strategy of projecting influence along critical maritime corridors.

Red Sea Strategy

Herzog’s visit cannot be separated from Israel’s December 2025 decision to formally recognize Somaliland, becoming the first country to do so.

The recognition triggered strong condemnation from Somalia, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, and several Arab and African states. Mogadishu described the move as a violation of its sovereignty.

Strategically, Somaliland sits near the Bab al-Mandeb Strait, a chokepoint linking the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean. Control and monitoring of this corridor have become central to Israeli calculations, particularly amid Red Sea tensions connected to the Gaza war.

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar previously warned during a visit to Ethiopia that the ‘Iranian-backed Houthis’ – the Ansarallah movement in Yemen – posed a shared threat to Israel and Africa. He linked maritime security concerns to broader regional instability.

The recognition of Somaliland appears to be part of a wider attempt to establish a forward presence near sensitive shipping routes — effectively expanding Israel’s southern perimeter in what analysts describe as a strategy of “encircling the Red Sea.”

Somalia views these moves as destabilizing. Turkish officials have likewise warned that the Horn of Africa should not become a “battlefield of foreign forces,” a pointed critique of Israeli maneuvering.

Diplomatic Balancing

Beyond maritime strategy, Israel’s outreach to Ethiopia intersects with the contentious Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) dispute involving Egypt and Sudan.

Israel has positioned itself as a potential “technical mediator” in water management issues, balancing its ties between Cairo and Addis Ababa. By embedding itself in Nile Basin diplomacy, Israel inserts itself into one of Africa’s most sensitive geopolitical fault lines.

At the same time, Israel has pursued broader re-engagement with African states. This includes reopening embassies, expanding security and technological cooperation, and offering military assistance to select governments.

The campaign comes amid efforts to counter growing African criticism of the Israeli genocide in Gaza. South Africa, in particular, has emerged as a leading critic, drawing parallels between apartheid-era policies and Israel’s war against Palestinians.

By strengthening bilateral ties with countries such as Ethiopia, Zambia, South Sudan, and Nigeria, Israel appears to be attempting to fracture African consensus and dilute diplomatic pressure.

Competition in the Horn

Israel’s diplomatic return to Africa unfolds within a crowded strategic landscape.

Türkiye is now one of Ethiopia’s largest investors and maintains deep security ties with Somalia. China remains the dominant economic force across much of the continent, including Ethiopia.

According to Ethiopian diplomatic sources cited by regional media, Ankara holds significant leverage that could influence Addis Ababa’s calculus regarding Somaliland and broader regional alignments.

Israel, meanwhile, has explored intelligence and maritime cooperation with Kenya to ensure freedom of navigation in the Red Sea.

The Horn of Africa has thus become a nexus where Chinese economic weight, Turkish military engagement, Egyptian security concerns, and Israeli strategic ambitions converge.

Our Strategic Assessment

Herzog’s visit to Ethiopia reflects more than routine diplomacy. It is part of a calculated effort to expand Israel’s strategic depth in Africa at a time when its regional position has been deeply shaken by the Gaza war.

Israel’s recognition of Somaliland signaled a willingness to disrupt long-standing African consensus around territorial integrity in pursuit of maritime leverage. The move effectively inserted Israel into the heart of Horn of Africa geopolitics, aligning itself against Somalia’s sovereignty and triggering regional backlash.

The Red Sea corridor has become inseparable from the genocide in Gaza. As tensions involving Ansarallah have disrupted Israeli-linked shipping, securing alternative surveillance and logistical footholds near Bab al-Mandeb appears central to Israeli planning.

At the same time, Israel seeks to exploit regional rivalries — positioning itself between Ethiopia and Egypt, between Somalia and Somaliland, and within broader Turkish-Chinese competition. This reflects a strategy of embedding Israeli influence in contested spaces where leverage can be maximized.

Yet the approach carries risks. Recognition of Somaliland has already provoked condemnation and could invite asymmetric responses from regional actors, including armed groups.

Crucially, Israel’s African outreach is also an attempt to mitigate diplomatic isolation stemming from its genocidal war on Gaza. Strengthening bilateral ties may soften votes in international forums and reduce coordinated African opposition.

The Horn of Africa is no longer peripheral to Middle East politics. It has become an extension of it. And as Gaza reshapes alignments across the Red Sea, Israel’s African gambit will increasingly be tested against both regional resistance and shifting global power dynamics.

(PC, AJA, Israeli Media)

Zimbabwe Bans All Raw Mineral Exports With Immediate Effect

By Dominic Wabwireh with other agencies

Zimbabwe has imposed an immediate freeze on exports of all raw minerals and lithium concentrate, the mines ministry announced Wednesday, tightening state control over resources critical to global clean-energy and defense industries.

"Government expects cooperation of the mining industry on this measure which has been taken in the national interest," Mines Minister Polite Kambamura said in a statement.

The ban covers all raw minerals already in transit and remains in place until further notice.

Global context

The move aligns with a worldwide trend as nations scramble to secure rare earths and strategic minerals essential for smartphones, green energy systems, and military equipment.

Many producing countries are tightening supply chain controls.

Value addition priority

The government aims to ensure "transparency, in-country value addition and beneficiation" in mineral exports.

The ban on lithium concentrates was originally scheduled for January 2027—a deadline meant to push mining companies toward local processing.

Zimbabwe holds Africa's largest lithium reserves and ships much of its production to China for refining. Mining contributes 14.3% to Zimbabwe's GDP.

Zimbabwe Walks Away From $367M US Health Deal Over Sovereignty Concerns

Zimbabwe has abruptly pulled out of talks with the United States over a new health aid deal meant to replace a program dismantled under President Donald Trump.

The agreement would have provided $367 million over five years, supporting 1.2 million Zimbabweans receiving HIV treatment.

Officials say the negotiations were halted because the terms threatened national autonomy, with concerns that the pact could shift control of disease response and grant Washington broad access to health data.

The US has been pursuing similar agreements across Africa under its "America First" strategy, partly to counter China’s influence on the continent, with Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda, Lesotho, and Eswatini among the countries that have signed deals.

With Zimbabwe stepping back, the US now faces the task of winding down its health assistance in the country, leaving the future of HIV and broader health support uncertain.

Somaliland Eyes Mineral Boom After Zionist Recognition

Africa News

In the rugged hills of Somaliland, officials say vast treasure lies beneath the earth. The breakaway territory in northern Somalia claims it holds abundant critical minerals and potentially billions of barrels of oil, resources that could transform its economic future.

“We have gemstone minerals and industrial minerals,” said Mohammad Ali Adam, an expert at Somaliland’s Ministry of Energy and Minerals. “We also have highly sought-after minerals like lithium, cobalt, carbide, and titanium. We expect this will improve the lives of our people.”

Authorities say Israel’s recognition of Somaliland in December could be a game changer, unlocking foreign investment and turning long-claimed resources into real economic opportunity. Ahmed Jama Barre, Somaliland’s Minister of Energy and Minerals, added: “We are requesting Israeli companies to help explore our lithium sites, to understand the quantity and quality. Then we will grant licenses to them.”

Israel became the first country to recognise Somaliland’s independence since it broke from Somalia in 1991, sparking anger in Mogadishu despite 35 years of self-rule.

Local mine worker Ahmed Ibrahim said, “We welcome Israel’s recognition of Somaliland and see them as brothers. With their support, we hope to expand mineral production and bring in modern equipment to power development.”

President Abdirahman Mohamed Abdullahi has openly considered granting Israel privileged access to Somaliland’s mineral wealth, signaling the territory’s willingness to leverage new alliances and investment opportunities.

Senior M23 Commander Killed in Eastern DR Congo Drone Strike

Willy Ngoma, spokesman of the M23, right, shakes hands with Emmanuel Kaputa (EACRF) in the eastern of Democratic Republic of Congo, Friday, Dec. 23, 2022.

By Dominic Wabwireh with Malaika Elisee

Democratic Republic Of Congo

The military spokesperson for the M23 rebel group, Lieutenant-Colonel Willy Ngoma, was killed early Tuesday in a drone strike near Rubaya in North Kivu province, multiple sources confirmed, dealing a significant blow to the rebel movement amid ongoing ceasefire efforts.

According to a senior M23 official, a regional diplomat, and a Western government adviser cited by Reuters, the strike occurred around 3:00 a.m. near Rubaya—a key coltan-mining town producing approximately 15% of global supply.

Congolese army drones targeted the area, where several rebel officials were reportedly killed .

Ceasefire violations accused

Hours before Ngoma's death, M23 political spokesperson Lawrence Kanyuka posted on X accusing Kinshasa of violating the ceasefire by "unleashing a total war across all front lines" and conducting "indiscriminate" bombings of Rubaya that "massacred innocent civilians" .

The rebel group later issued an obituary condemning the government's "grave acts" .

Sanctioned rebel figure

Ngoma had been under European Union sanctions since December 2022 for his role as M23 spokesperson and was designated by the United States in 2023 for alleged involvement in human rights violations, including killings and sexual violence

Additional sources • other agencies

M23 Rebel Group Spokesperson Willy Ngoma Killed in North Kivu Drone Strike

M23 rebel group spokesperson Willy Ngoma killed in North Kivu drone strike - M23 rebel group spokesperson Willy Ngoma. (Photo: X/Courtesy)

By Bashir Mbuthia

Tuesday, February 24, 2026

The 3:00 am strike reportedly occurred in Rubaya, North Kivu, a town crucial for its coltan mines that produce about 15 per cent of the global supply, Reuters reported, citing a senior rebel official.

The spokesperson for the M23 rebel group, Willy Ngoma, was killed in a drone strike by Congolese forces early on Tuesday in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

The 3:00 am strike reportedly occurred in Rubaya, North Kivu, a town crucial for its coltan mines that produce about 15 per cent of the global supply, Reuters reported, citing a senior rebel official. It reportedly followed several days of sustained drone operations in the area.

Ngoma’s death comes as Kinshasa and M23 continue to implement a Qatar-mediated ceasefire, establishing a joint monitoring and verification mechanism with observers from Qatar, the United States, and the African Union.

While the M23 group has not officially confirmed Ngoma’s passing, reports of the drone attacks correspond with statements from another M23 spokesperson, Lawrence Kanyuka, who confirmed the strikes in a statement on X.

“Since 2:43 a.m, drones from the coalition forces of the Kinshasa regime have been indiscriminately bombing the town of Rubaya, spreading terror and massacring innocent civilians,” he said.

Kanyuka likewise condemned the DRC government’s actions, accusing Kinshasa of deliberately targeting civilians. He added that similar drone strikes were launched in Kalehe.

“The Kinshasa regime has, once again, trampled the ceasefire underfoot. In flagrant violation of its commitments, it has unleashed a total war across all front lines and beyond. At precisely 07:00, its coalition forces launched savage and deliberate attacks against densely populated areas of Kitendebwa, Kashihe, and Kiduveri, in the territory of Kalehe,” he said.

“These criminal attacks, still ongoing, unequivocally demonstrate the Kinshasa regime's intent to sow terror, chaos, and death among civilian populations. The AFC/M23 calls upon the Congolese people as witnesses.”

M23 Senior Rebel Official Killed by Drone Strike in Eastern DR Congo

By JEAN-YVES KAMALE

2:14 PM EST, February 24, 2026

KINSHASA, Congo (AP) — Willy Ngoma, a spokesperson for the Rwanda-backed M23 rebels fighting in eastern Congo, has been killed in a drone strike, a U.N. official and a rights group said Tuesday, escalating tensions over the region’s conflict after peace negotiations stalled.

Ngoma, a senior officer who was deeply involved in M23’s operations, was said to have been killed in a predawn drone strike near the North Kivu province’s mining town of Rubaya.

The U.N. official and a coordinator with the rights group working in the area spoke to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals.

Rubaya residents told the AP that the drone strike targeted a spot that has in recent weeks served as an enclave for the M23.

The decades-long conflict escalated in January 2025 after the rebels made an unprecedented advance into the key cities of Goma and Bukavu, further expanding their control of several cities and towns in the hard-hit region. The conflict has created one of the world’s largest humanitarian crises, with more than 7 million people displaced.

It wasn’t immediately clear who carried out the drone strike near Rubaya, which is viewed by many in Congo as a setback to peace efforts that partners hoped would bring permanent peace and prevent a regional conflict.

The strike came weeks after Congo and the M23 rebels agreed to a ceasefire and methods of monitoring it with help from the U.N. mission in Congo. Both parties traded accusations of violating the terms of the truce.

U.S. President Donald Trump and Qatar have brokered peace efforts, but clashes have continued in recent weeks.

Guinea Confirms Detention of 16 Sierra Leonean Soldiers

Guinea's junta leader Col. Mamady Doumbouya watches over an independence day military parade in Bamako, Mali on Sept. 22, 2022. (AP Photo, File)

By BOUBACAR DIALLO

6:25 AM EST, February 25, 2026

CONAKRY, Guinea (AP) — Guinea’s military confirmed the detention of 16 Sierra Leonean soldiers after accusing them of crossing the border and raising their flag on Guinean soil.

The two West African countries have been involved in a border dispute for more than two decades, stemming from the Sierra Leonean Civil War between 1991 and 2002. Sierra Leone’s government had invited Guinea to help defend its eastern borders during the war, but the Guinean troops didn’t completely withdraw after the war.

The GuineanMinistry of National Defense said in a statement, issued late Tuesday, the soldiers entered the district of Koudaya in Faranah, a border region in Guinea, without authorization, where they“set up a tent and raised their national flag”. Guinean authorities also seized their equipment and supplies.

The Sierra Leonean authorities earlier Tuesday said several members of a security unit, including an officer, had been apprehended while making bricks for a border post in Kalieyereh in the district of Falaba on Monday.

Last year, the Guinean military entered a mineral-rich border town in Sierra Leone, reigniting the tension.

Sierra Leone Says Security Force Members Apprehended by Guinea’s Military Following Border Incursion

By OPE ADETAYO

12:41 PM EST, February 24, 2026

LAGOS, Nigeria (AP) — Sierra Leone’s government on Tuesday said that several members of a security team, including an officer, were apprehended and transported over the border by members of Guinea’s military.

For more than two decades, the West African countries have been involved in a border dispute that stemmed from the Sierra Leonean civil war between 1991 and 2002. Sierra Leone’s government had invited Guinea to help defend its eastern borders during the war, but the Guinean troops didn’t completely withdraw after the war.

Last year, the Guinean military entered a mineral-rich border town in Sierra Leone, sparking regional concerns.

The latest incident, according to a statement by the Sierra Leonean government, happened on Monday at the border town of Kalieyereh in Falaba district, where it said members of its armed forces and police were working on “making bricks for the construction of a border post and accommodation facility” for the border post.

The weapons and ammunition of the apprehended members of the security team were also taken, the government said. The statement didn’t provide an exact number of how many people were taken into Guinea.

The “government is actively engaging through established diplomatic and security channels to confirm their location and secure their safe and unconditional release,” the statement said.

Guinean authorities didn’t immediately comment on the incident.

Sierra Leone said its national flag was hoisted in the town in which the incident on Monday incident, and the territory is recognized as belonging to Sierra Leone.

Two Women From Memphis

Born during the Civil War, Ida Bell Wells-Barnett (1862-1931) and Mary Eliza ChurchTerrell (1863-1954) helped lay the groundwork for a century of struggles against racist violence, legalized segregation and for women’s emancipation through self-organization

By Abayomi Azikiwe, Editor, Pan-African News Wire

Sunday February 22, 2026

African American History Month Series No. 6

African women during the antebellum period in the United States were subjected to gross mistreatment and exploitation.

Enslaved women endured oppression on three different levels: race-national origin, labor exploitation and gendered domination. 

Yet, during this period from the 17th to the mid-19th centuries was also characterized by resistance to enslavement where women played a pivotal role. Women fought back against the slave traffickers, landowners and their surrogates from the time of capture on the African continent to their placement on plantations and other work locations in North America and throughout the Western Hemisphere.

Various forms of resistance became widespread during the colonial and later antebellum periods in U.S. history. Flight from bondage was an important method of liberation from enslavement. 

Violence and economic sabotage were also an important aspect of resistance to chattel slavery. African women utilized property destruction, work slowdowns, arson, poison and personal weapons to both defend themselves against beatings and sexual assaults which were routine under enslavement as well as mechanisms to free themselves from bondage in their flights towards liberation. (https://ldhi.library.cofc.edu/exhibits/show/hidden-voices/resisting-enslavement/day-to-day-resistance)

Harriet Tubman of Maryland was perhaps the best-known woman in liberating people from the plantations in the slave-owning states. Nonetheless, there were many others who participated in what became known as the Underground Railroad.

As the Civil War approached, anticipation of ending enslavement created even greater desires for freedom. Thousands of African men and women left the U.S. for Canada and Mexico where slavery had been outlawed since the late 1820s and 1830s. By the 1850s, more people had left North America for the Republic of Liberia which had been created by the U.S. for the expatriation of enslaved Africans in the U.S.

When the Civil War erupted in April 1861, African women became fully committed to transforming the conflagration from President Abraham Lincoln’s initial aim of preserving the Union to ending enslavement. Historian Hannah Katherine Hicks noted of the role of women:

“Several hundred thousand enslaved women took flight during the Civil War, and women and children became the majority in Union-controlled refugee camps, which contemporaries called ‘contraband camps.’ Fourteen-year-old Susie King Taylor, then Susie Baker, escaped from slavery along with her family in 1862. After Union navy forces captured Fort Pulaski off the coast of Savannah, Georgia, the family reached a gunboat which escorted them to St. Simons Island, where they claimed their freedom. Taylor, who had been secretly educated for years by older Black women in Savannah, began teaching freed children in St. Simons’ refugee settlement.” (https://www.oah.org/tah/the-union-remade/freedom-in-the-full-sense-of-the-word-southern-black-women-during-the-civil-war-and-reconstruction/)

In the state of Tennessee, secessionists were initially defeated in an election to join the Confederate States of America (CSA). In a subsequent vote, the planters and their agents used illegal methods such as violent suppression of anti-secessionist forces and ballot stuffings to guarantee the state’s withdrawal from the Union.

Nonetheless, even though the state of Tennessee was the last to join the Confederacy, due to their poor performance on the battlefield, they were the first to reenter the Union. A military governor, formerly Senator Andrew Johnson, was appointed by Lincoln in March 1862 to manage the state until the end of the war. 

Johnson was nominated as the Vice-Presidential candidate on the National Union Party ticket in 1864. This was a coalition of Republicans and anti-secessionist Democrats committed to the victory of the Union which happened during early April 1865. Just days after the surrender of the Confederacy, President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated in Washington, D.C.

Ida Bell Wells-Barnett and the Struggle Against Racial Terror and Jim Crow

After the collapse of the Confederacy in Tennessee, Union forces were also able to take control of northern Mississippi which is in close proximity to Memphis. Ida Bell Wells was born in Holly Springs in July 1862.

She attended Rust College until 1878 when the Yellow Fever epidemic which swept the region killed her parents and other relatives. After finishing her education, she began to teach at schools in the area. After the deaths of her relatives, she moved to nearby Memphis with several surviving family members where she obtained a teaching position in Woodstock. 

After the failure of Federal Reconstruction due to the outcomes of the 1876 national elections, the institutionalization of legalized segregation (known as Jim Crow) led to the passage of laws which were designed to permanently disenfranchise African Americans. In 1883, Wells was physically removed from a “ladies’ coach” on the Chesapeake, Ohio, Southwestern Railroad while traveling from Memphis to Woodstock, Tennessee. 

She sued the company and won a favorable ruling plus damages in 1884. However, on appeal in 1887, her victory was overturned. She was eventually terminated from teaching in the public school system as a result of her outspoken criticism of the segregated education system.

By this time, Wells had become a columnist for an African American publication and a regular participant in a lyceum in Memphis. She would later partner with fellow journalists in the ownership of the Free Speech and Headlight newspaper. 

This paper gained tremendous readership throughout Tennessee, Arkansas and Mississippi. The militant character of the editorial policy of the newspaper advanced by Wells brought her to the attention of the racist power structure. 

In March 1892, three of her friends, Thomas Moss, Calvin McDowell and Will Stewart, were lynched in Memphis after a shootout with racists attempting to shut down their Black-owned People’s Grocery Store. In response Wells wrote editorials condemning racist violence and debunking the rationale for the lynching of African Americans. (https://lynchingsitesmem.org/lynching/peoples-grocery-lynchings-thomas-moss-will-stewart-calvin-mcdowell)

Soon enough Wells’ newspaper offices were firebombed at the order of local judges and law enforcement agents in Memphis. Wells, who was away on a speaking tour, had to abandon Memphis and become a resident of Chicago. She would marry Atty. Ferdinand Barnett and begin a family in Chicago. Wells-Barnett would continue her journalism and public speaking across the country and in the United Kingdom. (https://awpc.cattcenter.iastate.edu/2020/09/21/southern-horrors-lynch-law-in-all-its-phases-oct-5-1892/)

Her writings were widely printed in numerous African American and progressive white newspapers. She published numerous pamphlets and books, many of which took on the character of social scientific research related to inequality, racial violence and class stratification. 

Wells-Barnett was a co-founder of the African American Women’s movement which consolidated into the National Association of Colored Women’s Clubs (NACW) during late 1890s. Wells-Barnett wrote and spoke about many incidents of racial terror across the South including New Orleans and Philipps County, Arkansas. In 1908, she was also a co-founder of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). 

In Chicago she worked to assist newly arrived migrants through a social services organization started by her and other colleagues. Wells-Barnett passed away in 1931, leaving a legacy of independent journalism, self-organization and feminism.

Mary Eliza Church Terrell: Women’s Organization and Transformative Politics

Another important African American woman to emerge from the cultural and political milieu in the post-Civil War period was Mary Eliza Church. She was the daughter of one of the leading African American figures in the early history of Memphis, Robert Reed Church, Sr. 

Church and other African Americans were faced with a social and economic vacuum after the occupation of Memphis by the Union army. He would open a series of small businesses which served as gathering locations for the Freedmen (former enslaved Africans). 

During the racial terror of May 1866, Church was nearly killed by white racists when he was attacked on the streets in Memphis. After the violence initiated by racist law-enforcement agents attempting to disarmed African Americans who remained mobilized after the conclusion of the Civil War, Church and his wife, Louisa Ayres, became successful businesspeople in Memphis. 

Mary was sent to Oberlin College in Ohio and later to France and Germany to complete her undergraduate and graduate education. She was fluent in French, Latin, Italian and German which she utilized in her speeches and the courses she taught after returning to the U.S. 

A report on her contributions in the Tennessee Encyclopedia notes that:

“Terrell’s advocacy for African American women led to opportunities to comment on broader issues facing her race. She made many speeches on the living conditions of African Americans and highlighted their progress in spite of discrimination. In a stirring address delivered in 1904 at the International Congress of Women in Berlin, she vividly described the numerous contributions of African Americans. She delivered the speech in German (she spoke three languages fluently), receiving accolades for her depictions of African American life and her intellectual abilities. Her speeches acted as morale boosters for African Americans, even as she exhorted them toward self-improvement. Terrell also wrote articles and short stories on lynching, chain gangs, the peonage system, defection of mulattoes, and the disfranchisement of African Americans. In her writings, she sought to further interracial understanding by educating whites about the realities of African American lives.” (https://tennesseeencyclopedia.net/entries/mary-eliza-church-terrell/)

Church-Terrell along with Wells-Barnett were heavily involved in the women’s suffrage movement aimed at winning the passage and ratification of the 19th amendment to the U.S. Constitution in 1920. In 1913, they participated in the National Women’s Suffrage March in Washington, D.C. refusing to go to the back of the march as suggested by some white leaders of the campaign. 

After her marriage to Robert Herberton Terrell, an educator and later attorney and judge, she would continue her career as a teacher and school administrator in Washington, D.C. She was known as a lifelong advocate for African American civil rights in the U.S. Church-Terrell was the founding President of the National Association of Colored Women Clubs (NACW) in 1896 where she campaigned against lynching, racial discrimination and for gender equality.

In the same above-mentioned report from the Tennessee Encyclopedia, it says of the latter years of her life:

“Terrell led a three-year struggle to reinstate Reconstruction-era laws that prohibited racial segregation in public eating facilities in Washington, D.C. These anti-segregation laws had disappeared in the 1890s when the district code was written. On February 28, 1950, Terrell, accompanied by one white and two black collaborators, entered Thompson Restaurant; they were refused service. Terrell and her cohorts filed affidavits, and District of Columbia v. John Thompson became a national symbol against segregation in the United States. Her direct-action tactics of picketing, boycotting, and sit-ins proved successful, and on June 8, 1953, the court ruled that segregated eating establishments in Washington, D.C., were unconstitutional. This ardent fighter for civil rights lived to see the U.S. Supreme Court mandate the desegregation of public schools in Brown v. Board of Education. Two months later, on July 24, 1954, she died.” 

Both Wells-Barnett and Church-Terrell have gained enhanced recognition by scholars in recent years. Their lives represent in part the role of African American women in the struggles against racial segregation, for gender equality and social emancipation. 

Black, Bilingual and Daily: The Political Role of the New Orleans Tribune (1862-1868)

The African American press served as a mobilizing force during and after the Civil War

By Abayomi Azikiwe, Editor, Pan-African News Wire

Thursday February 19, 2026

African American History Month, Series No. 5

In late April of 1862, the capture of New Orleans by the Union army proved to be a turning point in the Civil War.

With the Union taking control of the ports of New Orleans at the mouth of the Mississippi River would severely damage the capacity of the Confederate States of America (CSA) to carry out the consolidation of their secessionist project. 

The city of New Orleans had a different origin and character than most other southern municipalities. France had taken control of the area as early as the 1680s while maintaining control until the 1700s when it largely ceded control of the territory to the Spanish Crown. 

After arriving in Louisiana, which under France extended from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico, they enslaved the Indigenous people. Later in the early decades of the 18th century, thousands of West Africans were kidnapped and imported into the territory of New France. 

Prior to the Louisiana Purchase of 1803 precipitated by the Haitian Revolution, France had regained full control of the area. The then United States President Thomas Jefferson acquired Louisiana enhancing the geographic area of the country substantially. 

By 1861, when the Civil War erupted, the pro-slavery economic elites engineered the secession of Louisiana which joined the CSA. Nonetheless, New Orleans and other areas of the state were difficult to defend due to its topography and climate which left it prone to flooding along with infectious disease outbreaks. 

After the recapture of New Orleans in May 1862, the state would have a military governor who set out to crush any sympathies among the population with the Confederate cause. New Orleans was the most populous southern city at the time. Its demographic makeup was much more diverse. 

There were free and enslaved Africans along with mixed race groupings and poor whites. The enthusiasm for secession obviously did not penetrate deep into the white population.

Union Military General and Governor of Louisiana, Benjamin Butler, has been credited with imposing the concept of enslaved Africans as “contraband” during the Civil War. Those runaway Africans on Union-captured plantations were utilized as workers as well as militia to sustain the gains of the U.S. forces. 

In 1861 and 1862, the U.S. Congress passed Confiscation Acts which deemed that property taken by the Union forces from the Confederacy was not subject to return, including their enslaved African population. This law was designed to nullify the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 which mandated the return of runaway Africans from bondage. 

Eventually, regulations were enacted which authorized pay for Africans working within the Union military structures. These events provided even more incentives for people to flee the plantations and join the Union forces. The Confiscation Acts would lead to the conscription of Africans into the Union military beginning in 1863.

Confederate generals and officials felt the impact of Union victories on the plantation agricultural system. Many Africans ran away to the Union military camps in 1861-62 therefore depriving the plantations of workers while its former slaves could serve as sources of intelligence related to the Southern planters and their politicians in the Confederate government.  

The New Orleans Union and Tribune (1862-1868)

After the capture of New Orleans by the Union forces, African Americans made their voices heard through the founding of two newspapers. The motivating personality for the founding of these publications, The Union and later The Tribune, was Dr. Louis Charles Roudanez. Dr. Roudanez was joined by Paul Trevigne and Jean Baptiste Roudanez. 

Dr. Roudanez’s parents came to Louisiana after the beginning of the Haitian Revolution in August 1791. He was able to attend medical school in France and later returned for further studies in the U.S. 

These newspapers published in both English and French. Many African Americans had been in Louisiana for decades and centuries. 

Reports on his life indicate that he was heavily influenced by the Haitian Revolution and the French Uprising of 1848. After the establishment of a military government in Louisiana in 1862, Roudanez and his comrades would become an organized grouping which demanded full emancipation for African Americans. (https://roudanez.com/)

The Union newspaper lasted for two years and would be transformed into the Tribune. In a report on the role of the Tribune, it notes that:

“The New Orleans Tribune debuted on July 21, 1864. Publishing over 1,000 issues in the six years of its existence, the newspaper concentrated on matters of central importance to all Blacks: suffrage; an equitable labor and land system to replace slavery; the situation of the freedmen; the creation of integrated public transportation and school systems; the Black military; Union policies of accommodation with planters; Louisiana’s constitutional conventions; local and national elections; Reconstruction politics and legislation; and much more. The Tribune was instrumental in the creation of the Freedmen’s Aid Association, the local branch of the National Equal Rights League, the Friends of Universal Suffrage, and ultimately, the Louisiana Republican Party.” (https://roudanez.com/the-new-orleans-tribune/)

This paper is recognized as the first Black-owned newspaper in the South. When the publication began it was a triweekly. After acquiring printing presses from New York City, The Tribune would become a daily, the first Black daily in the U.S.

This same source went on to explain how The Tribune served as a forum for political education and electoral campaigns. It engaged in efforts to refute the notions of Black inferiority and the promotion of self-organization and emancipation.

According to the same above-quoted website:

“The newspaper actively participated in all the major political debates and played a key role in the creation of the 1868 Louisiana state constitution, the most radical in Reconstruction history. Always an advocate of racially proportional representation, the journal helped many Blacks win seats in the 1868 legislature, and campaigning arduously, almost succeeded in electing Francis Dumas as the state’s first Afro-Creole governor. Ultimately overpowered by conservative Republicans, the Tribune by and large suspended operation in the spring of 1868.” 

Just two years earlier, there was a massacre of African Americans and progressive forces in 1866 in New Orleans. After the conclusion of the Civil War, a pro-confederate mayor was put in office leading to protracted and violent conflicts over the future of the city and state.

The New Orleans massacre took place just months after a similar situation in Memphis which began on May 1, 1866. In response to armed African American militia units formed during the Civil War, white police, many of whom were in agreement with the defeated Confederacy, engaged in mass assaults, rapes and killings of African Americans in Memphis. 

Later in 1874, pro-Confederate militia known as the White League would invade the Capitol in New Orleans in an attempted coup against a multiracial state government. After three days, then President Ulysses S. Grant would deploy federal troops to reverse the putsch. 

These incidents in 1866 and 1874 were indicative of the racist resistance to Federal Reconstruction. By 1877, Federal support for Reconstruction would be withdrawn after the contentious 1876 elections. Groups such as the Ku Klux Klan and the White League would terrorize African Americans and their allies in order to reassert racial supremacy over the formerly enslaved relegating them to exploitative socioeconomic relations such as sharecropping, tenant farming, peonage and forced prison labor. 

The Role of African American Journalists and News Publications During Reconstruction and Jim Crow

Although the dawn of African writing, publishing and journalism began during the colonial and antebellum periods, later during Reconstruction and the imposition of Jim Crow, there was a flowering of literary and news platforms which paralleled the work of the New Orleans Union and Tribune. These newspapers, journals and pamphlets served as mechanisms to disprove the false propaganda, omissions and erasure of African American life, culture and political aspirations.

Therefore, many of these newspapers faced violent opposition. During the 1890s, Ms. Ida B. Wells was exiled from Memphis because her newspaper, the Free Speech and Headlight, waged a protracted national and international campaign against lynching and legalized discrimination. 

During the late 19th and early 20th centuries there were hundreds of African American newspapers and magazines created. Many were unable to sustain themselves over long periods of time. However, others such as the Atlanta Daily World, Nashville Globe, Chicago Daily Defender, Memphis World, Baltimore Afro-American, Pittsburgh Courier, New York Age, Amsterdam News, etc., would continue for decades. (https://niemanreports.org/timeline-of-the-black-press/)

The African American press covered lynching, the imposition of Jim Crow laws and the campaigns to resist these reactionary policies. During the Great Migration of the early to mid-20th century, newspapers such as the Chicago Daily Defender spread news throughout the South of economic and housing opportunities available in Northern and Western cities. 

These journalistic, literary and political contributions of earlier times must be studied by people in the 21st century. Today African Americans are compelled to engage in similar efforts to overthrow the attempts to reimpose legalized segregation and modern-day Jim Crow legislation and presidential executive orders.