The African Leadership Centre (ALC) invites you to our student-led Black History Month event titled: “From Africa to the Global South: Music of Power, Pride and Resistance- Celebrating Black Resilience and Global Solidarity”.

In honour of Black History Month’s theme, “Standing Firm in Power and Pride” this event reflects on the enduring role of music as both an aesthetic and political instrument in the struggles for justice and liberation. Across Africa and in the wider Global South, music has long served as a social text through which communities name their experiences, resist domination, and imagine alternative futures. From the coded black songs of the slavery era to the protest songs of the 1960s, the liberation anthems that accompanied decolonization, and the political music collectives.

In the 1980s, music functioned as a site of solidarity, identity formation, and resistance. This event invites reflection on how these sonic traditions continue to shape contemporary movements for freedom, belonging, and global justice. In doing so, it reaffirms the enduring power of music to connect struggles, sustain hope, and strengthen the moral imagination across borders.

About the speakers

Welcome Remarks:
Prof. Ekaette Ikpe, Director of the African Leadership Centre, and Professor in Development Economics in Africa

Keynote:
Tonye Marclint Ebiede, African Scholar in Peace, Security, and Development Fellow

Panellists:
Dr Patricia Opondo - Lecturer in African Music and Dance at the University of KwaZulu- Natal and public-sector ethnomusicologist

Dr. K. Kalyani - Assistant Professor of Social Science, Azim Premji University, and Sociologist

Ibou Ndiaye - Professor of Percussion at Bern University and Senegalese Musician

Dr Gloriana Rodríguez Álvarez - Lecturer in Leadership, Development, Peace and Security Education

Moderators:
Chidinma Nebolisa - African Scholar in Peace, Security, and Development Fellow

Mrinalini Agrawal - Associate Fellow in Global Leadership and Peacebuilding for the Global South

Danielle Sophie Tegang - Associate Fellow in Peace, Security, and Development for African Students

Closing Remarks:
Peter Claver, Associate Fellow in Peace, Security, and Development for African Students