Joseph Ki-Zerbo

Joseph Ki-Zerbo (June 21, 1922 – December 4, 2006, Burkina Faso) was a Burkinabé historian, politician and writer. He is recognized as one of Africa’s foremost thinkers.

From 1972 to 1978 he was professor of African History at the University of Ouagadougou. In 1983, he was forced into exile, only being able to return in 1992.

Ki-Zerbo founded the Party for Democracy and Progress / Socialist Party. He was its chairman until 2005, and represented it in the Burkina Faso parliament until his death in 2006. A socialist and an advocate of African independence and unity, Ki-Zerbo was also a vocal opponent of Thomas Sankara's revolutionary government.

Ki-Zerbo was born in Toma in the province of Nayala, in what was, at that time, the French colony of Upper Volta. He was the son of Alfred Diban Ki Zerbo and Thérèse Folo Ki. His father is considered to be the first Burkinabé Christian. In 1915 he intervened during the Volta-Bani War to stop Toma being razed to the ground.

Between 1933 and 1940, Ki-Zerbo was educated at the Catholic primary school in Toma, then completed his secondary school at the preparatory seminaries in Pabré in the Province of Kadiogo and Faladié, a district of Bamako, Mali. He then attended the Grand Séminaire Saint-Pierre Claver at Koumi near Bobo Dioulasso, which trains young men for the Catholic priesthood.

However, Ki-Zerbo dropped out of the Seminary and went to live in Dakar, Senegal for several years. In addition to teaching there, he had a job for several months with the weekly newspaper Afrique nouvelle, and also worked as a railway construction labourer.

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