Arts
Makonnen Sankofa is a 2x best-selling author, journalist, public speaker, and Founder of The Black Books Webinar. His debut book The Rise of Rastafari gives a broad overview of the history of Rastafari. Makonnen's book also tackles some of the misconceptions people have about Rastafari and highlights the core principles behind this black liberation theology which has taken the world by storm. Makonnen founded the Black Books Webinar monthly events in May 2020. The event is also hosted by Makonnen. Each month Makonnen invites different authors of African heritage to come on his online webinar and speak about their books. The webinars showcase the wide-variety of books written by black authors ranging from children’s books, history, relationships, culture, health, poetry, real-life stories. Towards the end of the webinar, there is a question and answers session where the audience can interact with the authors. Makonnen spent 6 months in the Gambia in 2019. His second book Life in Gambia: The Smiling Coast of Africa is about Makonnen’s experience of living in Gambia. During his time there, Makonnen delivered lectures in schools about his book The Rise of Rastafari. He also worked with Juliet Ryan on the popular YouTube channel called Blaxit, which reached 20,000 subscribers in the first 3 months of launching. Makonnen will be relocating to Africa again in the near future. Next time, he will be moving to Zambia where he plans to do more lectures and public talks to raise awareness of his book The Rise of Rast in Zambia.