The Weekly Read for January 10, 2026, is “Uncovering Radical Histories: Anna Budu-Arthur’s Everyday Politics of Decolonization and Transnational Solidarity” by Bright Gyamfi. The article appears in Radical Histories of Decolonization, a special issue of Radical History Review (153), edited by Manan Ahmed Asif, Marissa Moorman, Jessica Namakkal, and Golnar Nikpour.

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Abstract
This article foregrounds the life and times of Anna Budu-Arthur—a Ghanaian political organizer, middle-school leaver, and seamstress in Ghana’s attainment of independence from Britain in 1957. While this article reiterates increasing scholarly attention to women in African decolonial politics, it is not simply an exercise in recovering and recentering African women within nationalist and decolonization discourses. Rather, Budu-Arthur’s story reveals the ways African women were conscious of their roles in the making of their own political histories, often in connection with local and transnational Black diaspora allies. Interviews with obscure but important centenarian African women such as Budu-Arthur invite us to examine how segregated, but cosmopolitan, colonial urban spaces, as well as African and diaspora liberatory ideologies, informed anticolonial activism and cultural pride in the former British Gold Coast. Ultimately, Budu-Arthur’s transnational alliances and friendships and local rootedness underscore the need for an examination of African political and cultural activists beyond the framework of the nation-state.

For more than forty-five years, Radical History Review has stood at the point where rigorous historical scholarship and active political engagement converge. The journal is edited by a collective of historians with diverse backgrounds, research interests, and professional perspectives. Articles in RHR address issues of gender, race, sexuality, imperialism, and class, stretching the boundaries of historical analysis to explore Western and non-Western histories.

The Weekly Read is a feature that highlights articles, books, and chapters freely available online. You can find a link to the selection here on the blog, as well as on our social media channels. Enjoy The Weekly Read, and check back next week for something new to read for free.