The 1950´s, to my generation, exists merely for us to remember that someone famous came from there.

Movies, vintage posters and a great revival of the pin-up girl craze serve as plaques on which famous faces get to relive their lives in this age. Looking at these plaques closely though, I noticed a stamp in each corner… the American flag. I am not American, I want to know what was Africa doing at this time?

While Marilyn Monroe was scratching her Seven Year Itch, South Africa was experiencing apartheid, Africa was experiencing post-colonialism and generally had more important things to worry about. And worry is what people did. There was a chronic case of worrying. It was a plague that was spread by apartheid and oppression and of the many negatives symptoms that arose, one good thing did, Drum magazine.

Drum danced through the African continent, on legs of freedom of speech and to the music of a vibrant urban culture. It became the mother that fed the need for journalistic expression, allowing a new generation of black writers to talk about the conditions of their lives. Writers such as Henry Nxumalo, who risked his life exposing the brutal nature of the South African apartheid regime and many others. (Watch DRUM, starring Taye Diggs - based on the real life accounts of Drummagazine writer Henry Nxumalo.)

Not to leave a promising subject though, were there African pin-up girls? Searching for one was as hard as finding a Bush supporter. But even while looking there came the answer, again Drum. The magazine had been the voice of the people, in more ways than one. It featured fashion, great ads, and the African Beauty. No blonde hair and what I call the pin-up “oops!” face here.

Coming back to the search, I came across a treasure on Flickr, by Amaah who had collected pics from Ghana´s Drum publications and here they are! Enjoy and check out the Drum Decade book from Amazon to find out more about this great era in Africa.

Drum Decade book review:
The Drum Decade: Stories From The 1950s is an anthology of original stories of South African life chosen from the pages of Drum magazine. Originally published in the 1950s, these literary stories are written by black writers in a gritty and hardy city style that has endured for decades and celebrates cherished freedom. Fresh, vivid, unique, and exciting to read, The Drum Decade is a superior anthology embracing the cultural history of a nation and highly recommended reading for South African Studies supplemental reading and academic reference collections.