The independence movements that swept the African continent in the 1960s coincided with an exhilarating campaign for civil rights in the United States. These transformative struggles, reverberating across the Atlantic and beyond, formed a call and response that established “Africa” as a political idea. Ideas of Africa: Portraiture and Political Imagination examines the role of portrait photography within this emerging sense of Pan-Africanism, bringing together photographs by inventive image-makers from West and Central Africa—including Jean Depara, Seydou Keïta, Malick Sidibé, and Sanlé Sory—alongside contemporary works by Njideka Akunyili Crosby, Samuel Fosso, and Silvia Rosi. Published to accompany a landmark exhibition at The Museum of Modern Art, New York, Ideas of Africa explores portraiture’s powerful role in an era of self-determination and transnational solidarity. This richly illustrated volume includes an essay by curator Oluremi C. Onabanjo, critical contributions by poet Momtaza Mehri and film programmer Yasmina Price, and key theoretical texts by Brent Hayes Edwards and V. Y. Mudimbe.