The Story of Black Jesus: Rebel War, Thug Life and Growing Old in Freetown, Sierra Leone

Abstract Black Jesus went from fighting a civil war in the jungles of Sierra Leone to, in the aftermath of the war, making do in the “urban jungle” of the capital Freetown. By tracing his life course, this article aims to understand ex-combatants’ diminishing powers as they move from being rebel soldiers in a warzone to gangsters in a post-war environment to ageing into powerless ex-combatants, ex-gang members, sensing that they are no longer respected or even needed by anybody. It presents some of the frustrations of this ageing group of ex-combatants, in particular vis-à-vis a new, even more violent, cohort of urban gangsters—“our children” in the words of Black Jesus—that dominate the streets of cities of contemporary Sierra Leone, and the way that intergenerational relations between gangsters can change over time. Black Jesus is one of the article’s co-authors. This opens new analytical perspectives and increases his ownership over his own story.