“If history is benevolent, the wounds suffered from within and without, from the worst of colonial history and contemporary African corruption, greed, and gangster politics, will all someday become no more than the ritual scars of an initiation into world status”
Originally published December 17, 1985
"From Tangiers into the Rif Mountains to hear the piping and drumming and singing of the Master Musicians of Joujouka: 'The World’s Oldest Rock and Roll Band' ”
Originally published August 23, 1972
“What singles Beard out from the mechanized army that clicks across Africa is the same thing that singled out Ahab from the average sea captain — a kind of madness.”
Originally published December 29, 1975