Rahab Njeri | The invisibility of black women in activism

Greta Thunberg, Luisa Neubauer, Fridays for Future – the climate movement is white. However, this fails to recognise the reality and the activism of numerous BIPoCs who are campaigning against climate change – both historically and currently. For example, the Kenyan professor and environmental activist Wangari Maathai, who received a Nobel Peace Prize for her commitment and is still largely unknown in Germany. But it is not just the climate movement that is affected: Many prominent black activists today are barely known outside the black community. Why is this and how can we change this? Based on the life story of Wangari Maathai, Dr Rahab Njeri will shed light on the invisibility of black women in activism in her lecture and attempt to answer these questions.

Dr Rahab Njeri studied at the University of Cologne and completed her doctorate at the University of Trier. She is a historian, her research areas are postcolonial history, migration history, North American and British history (19th/20th century), Africana, gender and diaspora studies. Njeri is also a coach for diversity and intersectionality, anti-discrimination, critical whiteness, decolonisation and gender.

The Fritz Bauer Forum deals with the struggle for human rights in the past and present – in February 2024 explicitly with Black History. However, Black History does not only play a role once a year during Black History Month – we also use it as a starting point to deal with Black History and the present in the further course of 2024, for example in April 2024 with a focus on Rwanda or soon in our podcast „Ten Twelve“.

Contact: magdalena.koehler@buxus-stiftung.de

Featured photo: Nathan Dumlao, Unsplash

Photo Rahab Njeri: Jana Bauch

Photo Wangari Maathai: Sean Pants, Flickr