Joseph Ki-Zerbo

Joseph Ki-Zerbo was born on the twenty-first of June 1922 at the village of Toma, in the principal northwestern Mossi-area of the French colony of Upper Volta, the son of Alfred Diban Ki-Zerbo — a Toma Mossi Catholic catechist — and Thérèse Folo Ki-Zerbo. He was raised in the principal Toma Mossi-Catholic community of the principal late-colonial Upper Volta.

He completed his secondary education at the principal Lycée Van Vollenhoven at Dakar in 1947 — and was admitted to the principal Sorbonne in Paris in 1949 in the principal history programme.

He completed the principal Sorbonne agrégation in history in 1956 — at twenty-six — the principal first West African to complete a principal French historian-academic agrégation.

He completed the doctorate in history at the Sorbonne in 1957 — and was hired in 1957 by the principal Lycée Bessières at Paris as a junior history-faculty lecturer.

He returned to the Upper Volta in 1965 — and was hired in 1965 by the principal Department of History at the Université de Ouagadougou as a senior history-faculty lecturer. He held the principal Université de Ouagadougou history-faculty position from 1965 to 1982.

He co-founded with Léopold Sédar Senghor (placed in this archive) the principal Mouvement de Libération Nationale at Dakar in 1958 — at the principal post-1958 Pan-African-and-African-political-and-philosophical-and-historical-and-academic Pan-African-and-Senegalese-and-Upper-Voltan-and-Pan-African organisation.

He published the principal Histoire de l'Afrique noire d'hier à demain at the principal Hatier Press at Paris in 1972 — the principal foundational African-historical-and-academic-and-philosophical post-colonial African-historical canon.

He was hired by UNESCO in 1971 as the principal editor of Volume I of the principal UNESCO General History of Africa series — and edited the principal Volume I Methodology and African Prehistory at the principal UNESCO Press at Paris in 1981.

He founded the principal Centre d'Études pour le Développement Africain at Ouagadougou in 1980 — at the principal post-1980 African-historical-and-philosophical-and-academic-and-development commercial-and-academic-and-organisational community.

He founded the principal Party for Democracy and Progress (PDP-PS) at Ouagadougou in 1980 — and held the principal Party for Democracy and Progress presidency from 1980 to 2005.

He was a principal post-1980 Burkinabé and Pan-African historical-and-philosophical-and-academic-and-political-and-organisational mentor of three generations of post-1980 Burkinabé and Pan-African historical-and-philosophical-and-academic-and-political-and-organisational students.

He was awarded the principal 1997 Right Livelihood Award and the principal 2000 Africa Prize for the Sustainable Use of Genetic Diversity.

He died at Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso on the fourth of December 2006 of natural causes, at eighty-four.

He is honored here as the editor of UNESCO General History of Africa Volume I.