The events and countries depicted in HOPES ON THE HORIZON represent a trend that swept across the continent of Africa during the 1980s and 1990s. A new generation of Africans established a voice for themselves. These new leaders renewed the struggle for democracy that had been building throughout the 1950s and 1960s, as many African countries succeeded in throwing off their colonial rulers. In many nations, the governments that formed in the decades after independence were singleparty dictatorships. Prodemocracy movements, which had been steadily growing, gained more support as opposition to dictatorships, corruption, and military rule strengthened and national economies weakened,

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