We’re standing in front of the Thomas Sankara Memorial, in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso’s capital. Inaugurated on May 17 in the presence of various African heads of state and public figures, the site symbolizes a collective desire to preserve the legacy of the Burkinabé pan-Africanist leader Thomas Sankara and his 12 comrades who were assassinated in the 1987 coup d’état.

The massacre, orchestrated by Sankara’s then-ally Blaise Compaoré – who became president and ruled until 2014 with support from France – interrupted a wave of transformative reforms meant to eliminate the scars of neocolonialism in the Sahel nation.

In just four years, Sankara redistributed land to peasants and raised the literacy rate from 13% in 1983 to 73% in 1987. His radical transformation also extended to public health: 2.5 million children were vaccinated against meningitis, yellow fever, and measles.

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