Amilcar Cabral

In the 20th century national hero Amilcar Cabral played an important part in encouraging Cape Verdeans and people of Portuguese Guinea to support the opposition against colonial rule. He was born in 1924 in Portuguese Guinea of Cape Verdean parents. As a child he lived on Santiago and also on Sao Vicente. He scraped his way through school and later attended studies in Lisbon on agrarian engineering. After graduating he returned to Guinea.

In 1955 Cabral and another formed the PAIGC (Party for the independence of Guinea and Portugal). The party was not just focusing on the Portuguese, he was concerned that the Cape Verdeans were accepting the situation.

The international airport on Sal Island is named after Amilcar Cabral.

July 2011: Book about Cabral reveals that PAIGC was founded in 1959 and not in 1956 30 June 2011
Amílcar Cabral (1924-1973) – Vida e Morte de um Revolucionário Africano (Amílcar Cabral - The Life and Death of an African Revolutionary), a book written by Guinea Bissauan author Julião Soares Sousa, was released Wednesday, June 29, in Coimbra, Portugal. The work reveals that the African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde (PAIGC) was actually founded three years after the date believed by most to be that of its inception – in other words, in 1959 rather than 1956.