Africa Commons

Africa Commons is a project which aims to enable Africa to easily control, digitize, and disseminate its cultural heritage–within Africa, and internationally. Digital repatriation efforts will make Africa Commons available for free to all African institutions, and Coheret Digital is also opening the resource to HCBUs in North America.  This far, our platform includes:

• Africa Commons: History and Culture- A finding aid, directory, and indexing tool which links to 500,000 items across thousands of collections from some 600+ organizations. As a preservation project, we’re helping to preserve at-risk content, and have already rescued 100,000+ items.
• Black South African Magazines- The first and only digital collection of magazines created for Black audiences in Africa from 1937-1973, with more than 50,000 pages. (Please note that this collection remains in beta, and only Drum Magazine is currently available for trial.  The others will be online soon!)
• Southern African Films and Documentaries- This collection will enable streaming access to hundreds of films, covering more than a century of African history, politics, and culture.  Five film types are represented— propaganda, newsreels, documentaries, feature films, and interviews.

Though still in Alpha, this collection will be available in Beta version, soon! In the interim, here’s a sneak peek and two-minute trailer.