In the 1580s, an African man known as Yasuke entered the service of one of Japan’s most powerful warlords. The surviving record of his life is brief, but it reveals a remarkable story of African presence, international travel, and cultural exchange in 16th-century Japan.

After spending decades fighting for Black freedom in the United States, W.E.B. Du Bois moved to newly independent Ghana at age 93. His final journey connected a lifetime of scholarship, Pan-Africanism, political struggle, and a vision of Black people whose future stretched far beyond America's borders.