The Daily UbuntuInspiring Lives
Inspiring lives.
89 true lives, told as tales, to see how each one made the “we” bigger.
Every tale rests on verified sources, listed at the bottom of the page.
Ubuntu thinkers (18)
Jordan Kush Ngubane
A South African journalist, Jordan Kush Ngubane co-wrote the manifesto of the Congress Youth League in 1944. He was among the first to make ubuntu known in writing in South Africa.
ReadStanlake and Tommie Marie Samkange
In 1980, the year Zimbabwe became independent, Stanlake and Tommie Marie Samkange published a book on hunhu, ubuntu in Shona. They saw in it a political philosophy for the new country.
ReadJohn S. Mbiti
A Kenyan theologian and Anglican priest, John S. Mbiti challenged, in his 1969 book, the idea that African religions were demonic. One of his sayings is often quoted: "I am, because we are."
ReadMogobe B. Ramose
A South African philosopher trained in exile, Mogobe B. Ramose published African Philosophy Through Ubuntu in 1999. He showed that ubuntu is a true philosophy, one of human beings always in relationship and in motion.
ReadAugustine Shutte
A philosopher at the University of Cape Town, Augustine Shutte devoted much of his work to ubuntu. In 2001, he made it a shared ethic for post-apartheid South Africa.
ReadIfeanyi Menkiti
A philosopher and poet born in Onitsha, Nigeria, Ifeanyi Menkiti taught for decades at Wellesley College in the United States. In 1984, he wrote that we are not born fully persons: we become persons, among others.
ReadKwame Gyekye
A Ghanaian philosopher steeped in Akan thought, Kwame Gyekye taught for forty years at the University of Ghana. He argued for a "moderate communitarianism" in which community matters without ever erasing the dignity of each person.
ReadJulius Nyerere
A schoolteacher who became Tanzania's first president, Julius Nyerere tried to build his country on ujamaa, the spirit of family. His project had failures, but he left behind a united nation.
ReadKenneth Kaunda
The first president of independent Zambia, Kenneth Kaunda championed a "Zambian humanism" built on mutual aid and community. He also imposed one-party rule, then, defeated in the 1991 election, handed over power peacefully.
ReadDesmond Tutu
Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town, Desmond Tutu received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984 for his nonviolent struggle against apartheid. He chaired the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and made ubuntu known to the world.
ReadMungi Ngomane
Desmond Tutu's granddaughter, Mungi Ngomane published Everyday Ubuntu in 2019, with a foreword by her grandfather. In it she offers fourteen simple lessons for living ubuntu every day.
ReadDevi Dee Mucina
Born in Zimbabwe, of the Ngoni and Shona peoples, Devi Dee Mucina teaches Indigenous governance at the University of Victoria. In Ubuntu Relational Love (2019), he writes to his mother, his father and his children to mend what colonialism scattered.
ReadNgũgĩ wa Thiong'o
Kenyan writer Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o chose to write in his own language, Gikuyu. Imprisoned without trial, he wrote a novel on toilet paper, then defended African languages in Decolonising the Mind.
ReadAimé Césaire
A poet born in Martinique, Aimé Césaire gave birth in Paris to the word "negritude" and defended the dignity of colonized peoples. He was mayor of Fort-de-France for more than half a century.
ReadFrantz Fanon
A psychiatrist born in Martinique, Frantz Fanon headed a ward in Blida, Algeria, where he sought to reach his patients' cultural world. He later joined the FLN and dictated The Wretched of the Earth.
ReadCheikh Anta Diop
Senegalese historian and physicist Cheikh Anta Diop argued from 1954 that ancient Egypt had been peopled by Black Africans, then defended the cultural unity of Black Africa. His theses were debated, and the University of Dakar now bears his name.
ReadThaddeus Metz
An American-born philosopher based in South Africa, Thaddeus Metz seeks to articulate the ethics of ubuntu as a moral theory. His book A Relational Moral Theory (2022) is debated around the world.
ReadThich Nhat Hanh
A Vietnamese Buddhist monk, Thich Nhat Hanh called for peace during the Vietnam War and lived 39 years in exile. In France, he founded Plum Village and taught "interbeing": nothing exists alone.
ReadJustice and reconciliation (17)
Nelson Mandela
A lawyer and ANC activist, Nelson Mandela spent twenty-seven years in prison for fighting apartheid. Released in 1990, he shared the 1993 Nobel Peace Prize and in 1994 became South Africa's first democratically elected president.
ReadYvonne Mokgoro
Born in a Kimberley township, Yvonne Mokgoro became one of the first justices of South Africa's Constitutional Court. In the judgment that abolished the death penalty, she defended ubuntu.
ReadPius Langa
A former shirt-factory worker, Pius Langa became a lawyer for opponents of apartheid, then Chief Justice of South Africa. In Makwanyane, the 1995 ruling that abolished the death penalty, he described ubuntu as a culture of community and interdependence.
ReadAlbert Luthuli
A teacher and Zulu chief, Albert Luthuli led the ANC from 1952 and championed nonviolent resistance to apartheid. He was the first African to receive the Nobel Peace Prize.
ReadSteve Biko
A medical student, Steve Biko founded the Black Consciousness movement, which called on Black South Africans to seek psychological liberation under apartheid. He died in detention in 1977, at 30.
ReadLeymah Gbowee
In 2003, the social worker Leymah Gbowee brought together Christian and Muslim women in Liberia, dressed in white, to demand peace. Their action helped end fourteen years of civil war. She received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2011.
ReadCaptain Mbaye Diagne
An unarmed Senegalese officer with the UN mission in Rwanda, Captain Mbaye Diagne saved hundreds of people during the 1994 genocide. Since 2014, a UN medal for exceptional courage has borne his name.
ReadZura Karuhimbi
During the genocide against the Tutsi in 1994, an elderly healer in the village of Musamo hid more than a hundred people in her home. She kept the killers away by playing on their fear of spirits.
ReadAhmed Kathrada
A South African activist of Indian descent, Ahmed Kathrada was sentenced to life in prison alongside Nelson Mandela in 1964. Released in 1989, he devoted the rest of his life to a South Africa without colour lines.
ReadAlbertina Sisulu
A nurse and midwife in Soweto, Albertina Sisulu helped organize the great women's march on Pretoria in 1956. Jailed and banned, she kept on caring and fighting, until she became "Ma Sisulu."
ReadBeyers Naudé
An Afrikaner minister of the Dutch Reformed Church, Beyers Naudé broke with his own after the Sharpeville massacre. He left the Broederbond in 1963, founded the Christian Institute and became one of apartheid's great opponents.
ReadGraça Machel
The first Minister of Education of independent Mozambique, Graça Machel opened school to hundreds of thousands of children. In 1996, she gave the UN a major study on children caught in wars.
ReadKofi Annan
Born in Kumasi, Ghana, Kofi Annan spent his life in the service of the United Nations, becoming its Secretary-General in 1997. In 2001, he and the UN received the Nobel Peace Prize.
ReadImmaculée Ilibagiza
During the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi, Immaculée Ilibagiza survived 91 days hidden in a tiny bathroom. She later chose to forgive, without erasing any of the truth.
ReadChiune Sugihara
Japan's consul in Kaunas in 1940, Chiune Sugihara signed thousands of transit visas for Jewish refugees, despite Tokyo's refusal. Yad Vashem recognized him as Righteous Among the Nations in 1984.
ReadMahatma Gandhi
A young lawyer thrown off a train in South Africa for being Indian, Gandhi launched his first campaign of non-violent resistance there in 1906: satyagraha. Historians also recall that there he referred to Black Africans with a contemptuous term.
ReadCivil rights and diaspora (17)
The Freedom Riders
In 1961, Black and white women and men rode buses together through the segregated American South. Despite fire and beatings, hundreds kept going until the "whites only" signs came down.
ReadC. P. Ellis and Ann Atwater
In 1971, in Durham, a local Ku Klux Klan leader and a Black activist co-chaired ten days of meetings on school desegregation. By listening to each other, they became lifelong friends.
ReadRosa Parks
On December 1, 1955, in Montgomery, Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a bus. Her arrest launched a 381-day boycott that ended segregation on the city's buses.
ReadChristopher Emdin
A professor at Columbia University's Teachers College, Christopher Emdin teaches science by starting from students' hip-hop culture. In 2013, with the rapper GZA, he had New York teenagers write raps about science.
ReadMartin Luther King Jr.
A Baptist minister, Martin Luther King Jr. led the American civil rights movement through nonviolence. In 1963, from a cell in Birmingham, he wrote that we are all bound to one another.
ReadFannie Lou Hamer
A Mississippi sharecropper, Fannie Lou Hamer lost her job and her home for trying to vote. In 1964, in Atlantic City, she testified before a Democratic National Convention committee to defend that right.
ReadElla Baker
An organizer for more than half a century, Ella Baker helped students found SNCC in 1960, warning them against a movement centred on one leader. To her, strong people don't need strong leaders.
ReadJohn Lewis
The son of Alabama sharecroppers, John Lewis marched, without violence, for Black Americans' right to vote. Wounded in Selma in 1965, he went on to serve more than thirty years in Congress.
ReadRuby Bridges
On November 14, 1960, at age six, Ruby Bridges walked into a whites-only school in New Orleans, escorted by federal marshals. As an adult, she created a foundation for tolerance and respect.
ReadHarriet Tubman
Born enslaved in Maryland, Harriet Tubman escaped in 1849. She then returned about a dozen times to guide dozens of people to freedom, as far as St. Catharines, Canada.
ReadBryan Stevenson
A lawyer born in Delaware, Bryan Stevenson founded the Equal Justice Initiative in Alabama to defend people on death row and the wrongly imprisoned. He keeps saying that each person is worth more than the worst thing they have done.
ReadBayard Rustin
A Quaker champion of non-violence, Bayard Rustin advised Martin Luther King Jr. and organized the 1963 March on Washington. Because he was gay, he was often kept in the shadow of the movement he served.
ReadJames Baldwin
Born in Harlem, James Baldwin left for Paris, stifled by discrimination, then came back to take part in the civil rights movement. His books tell a story America denied.
ReadMaya Angelou
Poet and author Maya Angelou worked for Martin Luther King Jr.'s movement, lived in Africa, then told of her childhood as a Black girl in the South in I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. Her voice reached all the way to a presidential inauguration.
ReadShirley Chisholm
A Brooklyn early childhood educator, Shirley Chisholm became the first Black woman elected to the United States Congress in 1968. In 1972, she sought the Democratic presidential nomination.
ReadDolores Huerta
A teacher moved by the hunger of her students, the children of farmworkers, Dolores Huerta co-founded with César Chávez in 1962 the association that became the United Farm Workers union. She is credited with the rallying cry "Sí, se puede."
ReadRigoberta Menchú Tum
A K'iche' Maya woman born in 1959 in Guatemala, Rigoberta Menchú Tum lost several relatives in the civil war. Having become the voice of her country's Indigenous peoples, she received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1992, at 33.
ReadCanada and Quebec (15)
Viola Desmond
In 1946, in New Glasgow, Viola Desmond refused to leave the whites-only section of a movie theatre. Convicted over one cent of tax, she was pardoned in 2010, and her face has been on the $10 bill since 2018.
ReadMary Ann Shadd
Born free in Delaware, Mary Ann Shadd settled in Canada West in 1851. In 1853, she founded The Provincial Freeman and became the first Black woman to publish a newspaper in North America.
ReadJosiah Henson
Born enslaved in Maryland, Josiah Henson escaped to Upper Canada with his family in 1830. He then helped build the Dawn settlement near Dresden, with a school for refugees.
ReadCarrie Best
In New Glasgow, Nova Scotia, Carrie Best founded The Clarion in 1946, a newspaper for the Black community. Through her words, in print and then on the radio, she fought segregation for decades.
ReadKay Livingstone
A radio host and actress, Kay Livingstone co-founded the Canadian Negro Women's Association in Toronto in 1951. In 1973 she brought together the first national congress of Black women, and she is credited with coining the term "visible minority."
ReadStanley G. Grizzle
A sleeping car porter with Canadian Pacific, Stanley Grizzle fought racial discrimination with his union. In 1978, he became Canada's first Black citizenship judge.
ReadDaniel G. Hill
A sociologist born in Missouri, Daniel G. Hill settled in Toronto in 1950. The first director of the Ontario Human Rights Commission, he was also a historian of Black Canadians and Ontario's Ombudsman.
ReadRosemary Brown
Born in Jamaica, Rosemary Brown came to Canada to study. In 1972, she became the first Black woman elected to a provincial legislature in the country, in British Columbia.
ReadLincoln Alexander
The son of a sleeping car porter and a maid, Lincoln Alexander became Canada's first Black member of Parliament in 1968, then Lieutenant Governor of Ontario. He championed the cause of youth and fought racism.
ReadJean Augustine
Arriving from Grenada in 1960 to work as a nanny, Jean Augustine became a teacher, a school principal, then the first Black woman elected to the House of Commons. In 1995, her motion led to the recognition of February as Black History Month in Canada.
ReadAnna Greenup
Born in Ohio, Anna Greenup co-founded in Montreal, in 1902, the Black women's club that became the Coloured Women's Club, and was its first president. With wives of railway porters, she organized mutual aid in Little Burgundy.
ReadMichaëlle Jean
Having come from Haiti to Quebec in 1968, Michaëlle Jean became a journalist at Radio-Canada and then, in 2005, Canada's first Black governor general. She later became the first woman Secretary General of La Francophonie.
ReadRoméo Dallaire
Commander of the UN mission in Rwanda in 1993-1994, General Roméo Dallaire pleaded in vain for the means to prevent the genocide against the Tutsi. He then bore witness to what he had seen and devoted himself to child soldiers.
ReadDr. Gilles Julien
A pediatrician born in Grand-Mère, Gilles Julien created the first community social pediatrics centres in Montreal. There, doctors, lawyers, social workers and volunteers surround the child and family together.
ReadFirst Nations and Seven Generations (14)
Murray Sinclair
An Anishinaabe judge from Manitoba, Murray Sinclair chaired the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada on Indigenous residential schools. Its 2015 report set out 94 Calls to Action.
ReadCindy Blackstock
A Gitxsan social worker, Cindy Blackstock filed a complaint against Ottawa in 2007 over the underfunding of services for First Nations children. In 2016, the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal ruled in her favour.
ReadElijah Harper
An Oji-Cree member of the Manitoba legislature, Elijah Harper, holding an eagle feather, refused in June 1990 the consent needed to pass the Meech Lake Accord in time. His "no" helped sink the accord and became a symbol of Indigenous self-affirmation.
ReadShannen Koostachin
A young Cree girl from Attawapiskat First Nation, Shannen Koostachin fought for the children of her community to finally have a real school. After her death in 2010, her fight became Shannen's Dream.
ReadAutumn Peltier
From Wiikwemkoong, Ontario, Autumn Peltier has defended water since childhood. In 2019, she succeeded her great-aunt Josephine Mandamin as Chief Water Commissioner of the Anishinabek Nation.
ReadMichèle Audette
Born on a train to Schefferville, the daughter of an Innu activist, Michèle Audette has devoted her life to the rights of Indigenous women. A commissioner of the National Inquiry, she was appointed to the Senate in 2021.
ReadJoséphine Bacon
Born in Pessamit, Joséphine Bacon is an Innu poet who writes in Innu-aimun and French. A translator for the elders for decades, she has carried their words and the voice of the land into collections such as Bâtons à message.
ReadAlanis Obomsawin
An Abenaki from Odanak, Alanis Obomsawin has made documentaries at the National Film Board since 1967. Her films give First Nations a voice to tell their own stories.
ReadOren Lyons
A Faithkeeper of the Turtle Clan of the Onondaga Nation, Oren Lyons carried the voice of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy for decades, all the way to the United Nations. He also passed on the Seven Generations principle.
ReadMary Two-Axe Earley
A Kanien'kehá:ka woman from Kahnawà:ke, Mary Two-Axe Earley lost her Indian status by marrying a non-Indigenous man. After nearly twenty years fighting this discrimination in the Indian Act, she became in 1985 the first person reinstated in her status.
ReadSheila Watt-Cloutier
An Inuk born in Kuujjuaq, Nunavik, Sheila Watt-Cloutier chaired the Inuit Circumpolar Council from 2002 to 2006. In 2005, with 62 Inuit hunters and Elders, she brought global warming before a human rights commission.
ReadPhyllis Webstad
In 1973, at age six, Phyllis Webstad had the new orange shirt her grandmother bought her taken away at residential school. In 2013, her story gave rise to Orange Shirt Day, now linked to the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation.
ReadEllen Gabriel
A Kanien'kehá:ka artist from Kanehsatà:ke, Ellen Gabriel was chosen as spokesperson by the people of the Longhouse during the crisis of summer 1990. She went on to defend the rights of Indigenous women, the land and the language.
ReadBilly Diamond
As a young Cree chief of Waskaganish, Billy Diamond stood up to the James Bay hydroelectric project. In 1975, he signed the James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement, Canada's first modern treaty.
ReadHealing and protecting (8)
Dr. Rebecca Lee Crumpler
In 1864, in Boston, Rebecca Lee Crumpler became the first African American woman to earn a medical degree in the United States. After the Civil War, she cared for people newly freed from slavery in Richmond.
ReadWangari Maathai
The first woman in East and Central Africa to earn a doctorate, Wangari Maathai founded the Green Belt Movement in 1977, through which thousands of women planted millions of trees. In 2004, she received the Nobel Peace Prize.
ReadDenis Mukwege
A Congolese gynaecologist, Denis Mukwege founded Panzi Hospital in Bukavu in 1999, where he treats women who survived sexual violence in wartime. He received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2018.
ReadPaul Farmer
An American physician and anthropologist, Paul Farmer co-founded Partners In Health in 1987 to care for the poorest, first in Haiti, then in Rwanda and beyond. He believed the best care was owed to everyone.
ReadIrena Sendler
A social worker in Warsaw, Irena Sendler helped smuggle Jewish children out of the ghetto and secretly recorded their real names. Yad Vashem honoured her as Righteous Among the Nations in 1965.
ReadAbdul Sattar Edhi
In Karachi, Abdul Sattar Edhi built, from almost nothing, a foundation that runs one of the world's largest ambulance networks. He lived in a single room, with no salary and two sets of clothes.
ReadDr. Joanne Liu
A pediatric emergency physician in Montreal, Joanne Liu was international president of Médecins Sans Frontières from 2013 to 2019. In September 2014, before UN member states, she urged them to act against the Ebola epidemic in West Africa.
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