Founded by Rajat Neogy in Uganda in 1961, Transition was Africa's preeminent venue for cultural and political debate in the 1960s, literary home to the giants of African and black American writing. Today, Transition magazine is the premier international forum for the freshest and most compelling ideas about race and ethnicity, giving voice to a new generation of literary legends.

Transition Online is a frequently updated compilation of various articles from Transition's past that allows new readers to get an idea of what Transition is like.

Table of Contents

REMEMBRANCE____________________
White Skin, Black Mask: India in the 1970s was adrift in cut-rate imports—Cokes, cameras, Cadbury bars. This was a cargo cult, and its leader was an outlandishly worldly superhero . . . the Phantom. Three decades later, Kai Friese asks, Who was that masked man?

DISPATCHES____________________
Searching for Zion: They come from desert Ethiopia and mid-century America, and end up in the shadows of reggae clubs, reeducation courses, and the IDF. For the darker shades of Jew, settling in a harsh Promised Land is a dramatic leap of faith. Emily Raboteau goes hunting for black folks in Israel.

Guyanarama: In Search of Walter Rodney: In the last decades of the 20th century, tiny Guyana hosted an outsized roster of rebels, rogues, and raconteurs, from Pan—Africanist hero Walter Rodney to the homicidal cultmaster Jim Jones. It's a land where calypso is king—and where Africans and Indians engage in low-intensity race warfare. Achal Prabhala goes down to Georgetown.

Lenox Termina: Harlem: Capital of the 20th Century? For denizen and day-tripper alike, the black metropolis with the Dutch name has always been as much a burden as a promise, where history is the final destination. Sharifa Rhodes-Pitts makes a great migration.

Ebony and Ivoirité: On Baltimore Avenue in Philadelphia, casualties of the civil war include the butcher, the bodega-owner, and the president of the Association of Patriotic Ivorian Women. Ivory Coast's ongoing crisis has torn the country in half and destroyed its reputation as West Africa's golden child. Siddhartha Mitter explores pride and prejudice among the partisans of the Ivorian diaspora.

Tomb Raider: Everybody wants a piece of St. Francis Xavier. The Goans have his torso, the Romans have his wrist; one pilgrim even tried to bite off his big toe. And somewhere off the coast of China, there is a shrine to his elbow. Naresh Fernandes goes in search of a one-man diaspora.

Splitting the Difference: The no-man's-land between India and Pakistan is one of the most talked about places on the subcontinent. It's a bustling tourist destination, a training ground for soldiers, and the final resting place of a literary hero. There's only one problem: it doesn't exist. Amitava Kumar walks the line.

MEMOIR____________________
Evidence: American tourists are flocking to West Africa. The old slave mansions are breathtaking. The exchange rate is unbeatable. If you ask nicely, the guards might even bring you lunch. Brent Hayes Edwards reflects on doing time in a Senegalese jail.

UNDER REVIEW____________________
Blackballed: There's no denying that black players have transformed the game of basketball into a contest of style and attitude, balletic ball-handling, and fashion-forward haircuts. But if you actually want to win, you may have to call in the white guys. Tom Scocca ponders the art of the dunk.

Strange Fruits: The Harlem Renaissance was a classic avant-garde movement, full of adventurous new writing, bold artistic experiments, heated literary polemics--and homoerotic subtexts. In the decades that followed, it was enshrined as the birth of blackness, but at the time, it seemed more like an orgy. Mason Stokes revisits when Harlem was in bloom.

FICTION____________________
The River Lena
Land of the lost Slovaks.
By Alexander Boldizar

Down by the River
New clothes, fresh graves: Haiti.
By Marilene Phipps

The Wide Boys
Jeepers peepers.
By George Makana Clark

CONVERSATION____________________
Remains of the Day-O: Don't be fooled by his Broadway pedigree and banana-boat repertoire. Decades before Bono, Harry Belafonte was the original crusading crooner, a mass-market folk hero and confidant to Martin Luther King, Jr. So why was he singing “Danny Boy” and “Hava Nageela”? Michael Eldridge talks with the godfather of protest pop about the roots of race music.