History and social studies
The griots, the kingdoms of Mali, Great Zimbabwe and Kongo, the slave trades, the Congo Free State and the independence generation of 1960.
Fiston NdayishimiyeSchools and educators
Give your students the history
they never got.
A book and a speaker for classrooms that want students to know where they come from and what they can build.
Why it belongs in class
A mirror
and a window.
Awakening African Leadership brings together subjects students rarely see in one place.
African history told from African sources, the heritage of a people of the Great Lakes, the experience of a refugee who arrived in an American high school still learning English, and the words of African and Black American leaders who changed their worlds. Young people from refugee, immigrant and African families can see their own stories honored. Every student can step into a history they may never have studied.
Plug it in
Six ways to use it.
English and language arts
Memoir woven with history, a strong first-person voice, and quoted words from writers and leaders such as Chinua Achebe, Maya Angelou, Langston Hughes and Toni Morrison.
Character and leadership
Ubumuntu, the idea that a person is a person through other persons, and leadership measured by how we treat those with less power.
Newcomer and ELL support
A story of learning English, starting over and finding belonging at Concord High School.
Advisory and SEL
Resilience, persistence, well-being and the difference between safety and belonging.
College and professional
Education, social work, community development, nonprofit leadership and African studies.
Discussion guide preview
Five questions
to start with.
A free discussion guide for classrooms and book clubs is in preparation.
Full guide coming soon- The book opens with the land before it tells a single story about a person. Why might an author begin with a place? What place shaped you?
- Chinua Achebe recalled a proverb: until the lions have their own historians, the history of the hunt will always glorify the hunter. Whose stories were you taught in school, and whose were missing?
- Ubumuntu measures a person by how they treat people who can give nothing back. Where have you seen that kind of character in your school or community?
- The author arrived in New Hampshire still learning English. What does it take for a newcomer to move from being safe to truly belonging?
- The final chapter calls young people the architects of Africa's tomorrow. What would you build, and who would you build it with?
Put a living story
in front of your students.
I visit classrooms, assemblies and staff trainings, in person and online, for middle school, high school, college or educator audiences. Classroom sets and bulk orders will be shared when the book is released.
I leave you a thirst for education. Knowledge is the prime need of the hour.Mary McLeod Bethune, “My Last Will and Testament,” 1955