Last year, when a “darker” Algerian woman was crowned Miss Algeria there was immediate and fierce protest against her based on her skin color, lips, nose, etc. Years ago when a Nigerian migrant was killed in Ouargla, it resulted in violent clashes between Africans and locals. Stories abound of blacks not being welcomed on certain buses or people who will not greet them by taking their hand. For some, it is an erasure of reality as blacks are referred to as Africans while Algeria rest firmly on the African continent.

These incidents are ironic and confounding, as people in Algeria must have forgotten that in 1969 Eldridge Cleaver and many other black panthers from America fled to Algeria to establish the International Section of the Black Panther Party. Here they were welcomed and offered a safe haven. At that time, Algeria had an open-door policy providing support to oppressed people and leading a liberation movement.

When we think of these recent black racist incidents, it is important to remind people that before the migrants arrived from Senegal, Mali, Nigeria and Cameroon, for example, there had been an earlier black presence of power and independence. They were the Black Panthers and did not come via Wakanda!