Ambassador Kwame Muzawazi INSTAK CEO
By Dickson Bandera
The Institute of African Knowledge (INSTAK) will mark Black History Month 2026 with two major national events, the launch of a continental civilisation exhibition and the official opening of the Robert Gabriel Mugabe Museum, as Zimbabwe joins the global commemoration of 100 years of Black History Month.
The events were announced in a statement issued by INSTAK on Friday.
Black History Month 2026 is being observed internationally under the theme “A Century of Black History Commemorations,” reflecting on a hundred years of organised efforts to document, celebrate and reclaim Black history and contributions to humanity.
The first event will be the launch of a large-scale historical exhibition titled “10 000 Years of Civilisation, Technology and Ubuntu” on February 2 at Heritage Village, Liberation City, in Harare.
According to INSTAK, the exhibition offers a curated visual and historical journey tracing African and Afro-descended people’s contributions to science, architecture, technology, mathematics and social organisation across millennia.
Senior government officials, diplomats, academics and cultural leaders are expected to attend the launch, highlighting the exhibition’s national and international importance.
Later in the month, on February 21, INSTAK will officially open the Robert Gabriel Mugabe Museum at RGM House in Highfield, the former private residence of the late President of Zimbabwe. The museum is intended to serve not only as a memorial space, but also as a cultural and educational centre.
INSTAK said the museum forms part of a broader strategy to promote township and domestic tourism, particularly in Highfield, a suburb that played a central role in Zimbabwe’s nationalist politics and liberation struggle.
The Black History Month programme aligns with INSTAK’s long-standing mandate to document, preserve and promote African history, heritage and indigenous knowledge systems. Established as a Pan-African research and policy institute, INSTAK positions itself as a knowledge production centre focused on correcting historical distortions, challenging epistemic marginalisation and restoring African agency in global historical narratives.
Its flagship intellectual projects include the Book of African Records, the Africa Factbook, and the Chimurenga/Umvukela Encyclopaedia, which collectively seek to systematise African historical data and achievements that have often been omitted or misrepresented in mainstream global scholarship.
The institute is led by its founder and executive director, Kwame Muzawazi, a Pan-African scholar, policy analyst and former diplomat. Ambassador Muzawazi has been a prominent voice in debates on African sovereignty, decolonisation of knowledge, and the political economy of culture. He has consistently argued for Africa-centred historiography and the institutionalisation of African knowledge systems as a foundation for development, identity and policy formulation.
INSTAK has emerged as an influential think tank linking history, culture and policy, with its work increasingly intersecting with heritage tourism, education and national consciousness.
INSTAK said its Black History Month activities are meant to foreground Africans and people of African descent “as primary authors and shapers of world civilisation,” positioning history not merely as remembrance, but as a strategic resource for identity, unity and future development.
