In 2000, I was contracted by Wesley Snipes and St Clair Bourne to do 3D animation for a documentary on Yosef Ben-Jochannan aka Dr. Ben. Wesley was doing a series of Black History documentaries, the first being A Great and Mighty Walk: John Henrik Clarke. The doc on Dr Ben was never finished when the Blade Series took off. There was some controversy about the film I was never sure about. History fell to commerce. Wesley, treated folks right and just got caught up in a great success. Maybe it will be finished one day. <br />
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The 3D animation was based on a survey of the ruins of Karnak that resides at the Oriental Institute in Chicago. This is what it would have looked like based on the 8 weeks of research I did. Then 6 weeks of production with Max McMullen in London working remotely between Chicago and there most of the time. <br />
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I returned to Chicago permanently and Max went on to be animation supervisor for Dave McKean's Mirrormask.

Editor's note: Viewers are advised that some of the images and testimony of victims in this episode of People & Power are deeply disturbing.

Almost two decades ago, when Sierra Leone was in the grip of a brutal civil war, troops from Nigeria (operating under the auspices of the Economic Community of West African States ECOWAS and its Military Observer Group ECOMOG) were deployed to protect civilians from rebel forces in the capital Freetown.

But instead, some of the peacekeepers turned on those they were meant to safeguard, committing atrocities that were captured on camera by a journalist, Sorious Samura, and later included in Cry Freetown, a landmark documentary about the conflict that shocked the world.

At the end of hostilities in 2002, a special United Nations-funded tribunal was established to "prosecute persons who bear the greatest responsibility for serious violations of international humanitarian law and Sierra Leonean law," but in reality it only focused on the actions of combatants during the war - the alarming brutality of the Nigerian soldiers was never addressed.

Now Samura's harrowing footage has become central to a remarkable attempt by an international group of lawyers to finally get justice and redress for the victims.

Here are some of the housing designs from Chagga, Sukuma and Massai communities found in East Africa.

Macford Mwape lives on less than two dollars a day in Zambia's Copperbelt region. He's spent the last five years painstakingly making ten thousand mud bricks, to build the house of his dreams. Now he wants to train his neighbours to build better houses for themselves.Duration:02:20

A much-needed discussion among Pan-Africanist from varying perspectives on the issue of religion, spirituality, and culture in the African liberation fight.

April 1992 - Dr. Josef Ben-Jochannan discusses the lies and distortions of African history as it is taught in European societies and cultures.