2025-2026 WFU History Department Speaker Series Presents

The City Beyond the State: African-led Urban Change in Colonial Ghana
Dr. Nate Plageman
Professor of History, Wake Forest University

From 1890-1950, British officials went to great lengths to transform a small coastal town in present-day Ghana, Sekondi-Takoradi, into a model colonial city. Sekondi-Takoradi was the site of several ambitious state-led city-building projects, ultimately becoming one of the first planned cities in all of British West Africa. In this talk, Dr. Nate Plageman invites us to consider how African townspeople experienced such efforts and initiated their own strategies to reshape their urban world, recognize themselves as an urban public, and reclaim the city's future from the clutches of the colonial state.

•  Porter Byrum Welcome Center Auditorium
• Monday, February 23, 2026
•  3:30–5:00 PM
• Reception to follow