NO CRUSADER EVER KEEPS QUIET

Hi Friends,

This is the call

Write a post within 200-250 words, talking about the real Africans that would never, never keep shut when we need to cry out!.......

And here is my response.

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The African Art of Expression by Ben Enwonwu

Africans, they are simple people: what the ground does not give, they don’t yearn for. But usually, it is the simple ones who speak softly that carry big sticks.

Simple ex-slave woman, Sojourner Truth, an abolitionist and activist, stood on a platform at the Ohio Women's Rights Convention to give the feminist anthem,

That was 1851.

In 1963, before his assassination, civil right activist, Martin Luther King, lent his voice too many times to pronounce his dreams and preempt freedom.

Leopald Sedar Senghor, negritude poet and politician, used his position on the corridor of power to call Africa to the rest of the world.

Dele Giwa; Bola Ige; Ken Saro Wiwa and the Ogoni Nine, they had ropes held around their necks (and a bomb too). But did they talk still? Oh, they said plenty.

But let's not only forget those who wove their protests into poetic heartbeats- Okigbo,Soyinka, Ngugi Wa Thiongo, Oswald Mtshali, Achebe, Ben Okri… These men live(d) only to open their mouth to the world and tell of the Africa that is and the one that should be.

Truth be told, no one African actually keeps quiet, from political enthusiasts who argue on verandahs to ranting women and African youths organising small movements. Because Africans, we might be simple people but we are crusaders holding up the fort of this great but battered continent. And if there is one thing I know, it is that no crusader ever keeps quiet.