Archbishop Desmond Tutu. Anti-Apartheid politician and revolutionary Oliver Tambo. The musicians Jazzie B, Miriam Makeba, Angélique Kidjo and Youssou N’Dour; the writers Alice Walker, Ben Okri and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie... The list of visitors to London’s pioneering Africa Centre over the years makes for seriously impressive reading.
Kenneth Kaunda - then the newly elected leader of newly independent Zambia - opened its Covent Garden building in 1964. Artists Sonia Boyce, who last month won the Golden Lion at the Venice Biennale after years of teaching and making work without gallery representation, and Lubaina Himid, who aged 68 finally has a solo exhibition at Tate Modern right now, both showed at the centre back in 1983 alongside Claudette Johnson, Houria Niati and Veronica Ryan in a show entitled Five Black Women. In its earliest days, it served as a co-ordination point for voices of liberation during independence struggles across the continent; now for nearly 60 years the Africa Centre has served as a cultural hub for the African diaspora in London and a flagship for Africa in Europe.
