Where did Thomas Sankara grow up and live?

📍Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso

1949 – 1987

“I was born Thomas Isidore Noël Sankara on the 21st of December 1949 in Yako, Upper Volta — the country I renamed Burkina Faso, Land of the Upright People, in 1984. I led a military coup in 1983 at thirty-three and governed for four years with a revolutionary programme of women's emancipation, tree planting, vaccination campaigns, and refusal of foreign aid. I sold the government's fleet of Mercedes and replaced them with Renault 5s — the cheapest car available. I carried my own luggage. I told the people of Burkina Faso that the IMF and World Bank were tools of their continued subjugation. I was assassinated on the 15th of October 1987 in a coup led by my closest friend, Blaise Compaoré. Ouagadougou was where I built and where I died.”

👍 LovedThe tree planting campaign that held back the Sahara. The women's emancipation programme that was the most radical in West Africa. The personal austerity that matched the public message.

👎 DislikedThe assassination by my closest friend. The four years that were not enough to complete anything. The knowledge that what I had built would be undone within days of my death.

Map showing where Thomas Sankara lived — Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso

🗺️ Approximate location today

📷 Location image · via Wikimedia Commons

Sources: Harsch, E. Thomas Sankara: An African Revolutionary (2014), Ohio University Press; Sankara, T. Thomas Sankara Speaks (1988), Pathfinder Press