Written by the WWLA Founders
Edited by Michelle Mocumbi
To the griot ancestors of African descent whose words through the ages inspire us today
To the present griots of African descent who are owning and documenting African narratives now and for the future …
And to the generations of griots to come …
This is for you.
— Dedication to We Will Lead Africa: Volume Four
Our fourth We Will Lead Africa (WWLA) volume, Courage, Community, Creativity is the embodiment of our WWLA ethos of collective leadership.
We: Collaborative and accountable leaders, taking unified action for the collective.
This volume is close to our hearts for a number of reasons:
First, we were thrilled to profile our administrative coordinator and copy-editor Michelle Mocumbi’s artwork on the cover. It was a beautiful manifestation of the volume itself and our drive to profile everyday African leaders and their work in all forms. It also illustrated how creativity is a part of leadership and storytelling. Not only did Michelle agree to have her art grace the cover, but her foreword reflecting on the Griot Masterclass – from which half of the contributors’ stories were developed – also perfectly summarized the essence of the volume:
What does it mean to lead? And more importantly, what does it mean to lead as an African
I have yet to arrive at an all-encompassing, finite answer (if such a thing even exists), but here is where I’ve landed for now:
African leadership means developing the creativity to alchemize the stories of our past and the dialogues of our present into a narrative of action for a more empowered and egalitarian future.
It is prioritizing community at every turn, seeing the threads of history and culture that bind us, and seeking to nurture, strengthen, and preserve them.
It is maximizing the best in me in service of the best for us all.
And perhaps, most crucially, African leadership is the commitment and courage to show up, time and time again.
These are the answers I’ve found in this incredible cohort of Griots who have lent their personal narratives to this volume.
As they did for me, I hope the stories you’re about to read spur you to question leadership (what it is, what it looks like, who leads, what for, how); to celebrate the everyday leaders in your life; and to recognize the leader in you who shows up time and time again, whatever the cause.
Second, while we already had a WWLA volume dedicated to women’s leadership, this volume also served as a case study in female leadership. In addition to what Michelle described as our ‘bustling’ women-led editorial team, 20 of the volume’s 24 contributions were from women. While we reject the ways in which women’s leadership is often homogenized and essentialized, we simultaneously celebrate the holistic and reflective nature of the volume as a whole. The volume addressed concerns of women that are equally marginalized in leadership literature, such as maternal health, sexual reproductive health, public health, holistic wellness, community counselling and support, raising women’s voices, education for women and girls, libraries in rural areas. As if to signal this, the opening story by Griot and peer editor Maryam Oluwakemi Funmilayo starts as follows:
Oh, powerful African women! You toiled under the heat to build Mama Africa so that your African progeny could live better lives! We honour you by remembering you through history. You will never be forgotten!
The hope is to build an African continent devoid of oppressive, suppressive, systemic, traumatic emotional war on its women. The women who have helped nurture Africa from its inception to where it stands today.
Third, the contributors in this volume were collectively a glowing sample of what representation of Africa and her diaspora looks like. This sample of 25 contributors spans every region of Africa, hailing from Egypt to South Africa and Nigeria to Kenya; from anglophone to lusophone and francophone colonial language heritages; from Muslim to Coptic to Christian to traditional African beliefs and teachings; from the Queer community to those with multiracial and transnational identities spanning the Americas and Europe. This is what pan-African representation can and does look like; and this diversity is indeed our collective strength.
Fourth, it was therefore no surprise that the volume included a deep exploration of how self-identity impacts leadership. Contributors asked: Who am I as a leader? As an African? And as an African leader? As contributor Prudence Nkomo reflected:
As we all voyage towards self and our roots, I encourage us, you and me:
To dare
To speak
To trust
To see, beyond me
To see, beauty in another
To hear, the semblances in our hearts
To hear, the stories told and untold.
To be,
To pause – yes, pause – and listen.
To listen and be present,
then engage in countless cycles of reflection and rumination.
To exist, in our fullness.
Everyone has a story.
Everyone is a story.
Lastly, we continue to think about and unpack the beautiful three words in this volume’s title. We love the Griot cohort’s poem about courage, community, and creativity, and we continue to ponder what it means to speak of these themes now.
Courage, Community, Creativity:
A Griot Commitment Poem
by the We Will Lead Africa Griots 2023
Onwards
With the power of a unit, an organ,
a family, a village, a Tribe
With courage, curiosity, and compassion
With healing hands, ready and willing to be,
to contribute to a community of rich stories,
to empower, support, and strengthen African leadership
To feed creativity with purpose and intention
To build and tell a new narrative of my mother Africa
To give my dreams the brave space
to become an African reality
to inspire others to believe, understand, and appreciate Africa as the best place to be,
then, now, and in every future to come.
The world has changed tremendously since we were in conversation with the Griot cohort in 2023 and launched the volume in 2024 – how have our own understandings of courage and community and creativity transformed in our changing technology age? What courage is required of us, and you, in these times?
We are grateful we have you, the WWLA community, to keep navigating and exploring these questions with. We are grateful that this volume brought us 54Lights (Kondwani Mwase’s podcast celebrating people and projects from the African continent) and the Sheroes Collective (René Sparks’ discussions with womxn influencing policy, inequity, and injustice) to keep exploring our stories orally as well as in written form. We look forward to continuing to exercise courage and explore new creative forms of leadership, together in this community.
Use the slide deck below to read some inspirational quotes from Volume Four:
