Adama Juldeh Munu

A multi-award-winning journalist and producer whose work spans leading international platforms including TRT, Al Jazeera, The Huffington Post, The New Arab, Middle East Eye, and Black Ballad. She currently serves as the principal producer of Across the Balkans, TRT World’s flagship programme on Southeast Europe — the only English-language TV show dedicated to the region — where she leads coverage that brings Southeast Europe’s most pivotal stories to global audiences. Since joining the programme in 2023, she has spearheaded in-depth reporting on regional memory, justice, and activism — from the varied Balkan responses to the war in Gaza to the international commemoration of the Srebrenica genocide.

As the first Black British Muslim woman in hijab to report for a Turkish public broadcaster, Adama has consistently broken new ground. Her work explores the intersections of race, Black heritage, Islam, and the African diaspora, crafting narratives that challenge, connect, and resonate worldwide. She first made her mark at TRT on the Newsfeed programme, where her field reporting and acclaimed video essays — on topics such as Black Muslim identity in global culture, Sudanese women and revolution, and Afro-Ottoman heritage — earned international recognition. Before joining TRT, she produced Africa This Week, the Islam Channel’s first current affairs show on African affairs, delivering reports on topics ranging from Black Muslim women in the global natural hair movement to on-the-ground coverage of Freetown's post-disaster recovery following a devastating mudslide in 2017.

A recipient of the 2020 FIPP & UPM Rising Stars in Media award, Adama was named Journalist of the Year at the UK African and African-Caribbean Awards in 2023. She also served as a judge for the 2023 Sandford St Martin Awards, recognising excellence in religion and ethics broadcasting.

She holds a Master’s degree in Middle East and global politics and a Bachelor’s degree in History with honours from the University of London, alongside a minor in journalism from City University. She has lectured at the Muslim Institute, SOAS University of London, and the University of St Andrews.

Siyah is a descriptive term for 'black' in Turkish. It is the title of a series for award-winning collective Afropean focusing on a variety of themes and narratives binding both Turkey, its Ottoman past and parts of the African diaspora. The series is not intended to be an exhaustive treatment of all the histories and ties connected between these two communities. It will serve as an introduction into themes well-known in Africana studies, framed within Turkey's European and Islamic context. The curators of this project are journalist Adama Juldeh Munu and Afropean co-editor Nat Illumine.

Afropean •

Siyah: Malcolm X as a Political Symbol Among Turkish Islamists

This is the thirteenth instalment in ‘Siyah’, a series which explores African Diaspora and Turkish social and cultural narratives, with journalist Adama Juldeh Munu.
Jeffrey Bishku-Aykul argues in the years since Malcolm X successfully internationalised his political cause, it has been readapted and reinterpreted by Turkish Islamist newspaper columnists to make the case for their own political causes in contemporary Turkey.
Afropean •

Siyah: Black American Servicemen and Turkish Workers in West Germany: Two Cultural Responses to Prejudice and Discrimination

This is the twelfth instalment in ‘Siyah’ which explores the relationship between the African Diaspora and Turkish social and cultural narratives, with journalist Adama Juldeh Munu. In 1973, the sociologist Peter T. Suzuki produced a comparative analysis of the cultural responses of African-American Government Issue (GI) servicemen and Turkish workers in what was then known as West Germany.
Afropean •

Siyah: The Sultans of Jazz: Part II

Adama Juldeh Munu speaks to filmmaker Ümran Safter over her new feature-length documentary on the Ertegün Brothers, who left an indelible imprint on African-American music and culture. Audiences will learn how they helped to desegregate music during the Jim Crow era in the United States. This is the eleventh instalment in ‘Siyah’, which explores the relationship between African Diaspora and Turkish social and cultural narratives.
Afropean •

Siyah: Hats and Hijabs: An Algerian and Turkish Discourse

This is the ninth instalment in ‘Siyah’, a series exploring the relationship between the African Diaspora and Turkish social and cultural narratives, with journalist Adama Juldeh Munu. Courtesy of the Ottoman History Podcast, the following interview explores debates on aesthetics, headwear and dress in Algeria and Turkey during the interwar years (1918-1939).
Why did hats and hijabs (head coverings in Arabic) generate so much debate among Algerian thinkers, both men and women?
Afropean •

Siyah: Muhammad Shitta Bey and the First Mosque in Lagos, Nigeria – Afropean

This is the sixth instalment in ‘Siyah’, a series which explores African Diaspora and Turkish social and cultural narratives, with journalist Adama Juldeh Munu. Hassam Munir alludes to some of the cultural outcomes of the Ottoman Empire’s pursuit to gain greater influence in Africa through religious institutions. He tells the story of Muhammad Shitta, also known as ‘Shitta Bey’, who was born in the liberated African village of Waterloo, Sierra Leone to Yoruba parents who were rescued by the British from illegal slave trading. He is known for having played an important role in the spread of Islam in Nigeria and Sierra Leone.
Afropean •

Siyah: Haiti and the success of the Greek Independence Wars against the Ottomans

This is the fourth instalment in ‘Siyah’, a series which explores African Diaspora and Turkish social and cultural narratives, with journalist Adama Juldeh Munu. To mark 230 years since the Haitian Revolution began and 200 years since the culmination of the Greek War of Independence, the following article will summate Haiti’s support for Greek independence against the Ottoman Empire.
Afropean •

Siyah: Black Eunuchs: The Case of Bashir Agha

This personal piece authored by Zeinab Suleiman focuses on the life of Bashir Agha, a prominent African eunuch during slavery in the Ottoman Empire, and what his life can tell us about the treatment of Black eunuchs in the imperial court. It’s the third instalment in ‘Siyah’, a series exploring the relationship between the African Diaspora and Turkish social and cultural narratives, with journalist Adama Juldeh Munu.
Afropean •

Siyah: Deciphering the Ottoman Involvement in the African Slave Trade

This is the second instalment as part of a new series entitled ‘Siyah’ which explores the relationship between the African Diaspora and Turkish social and cultural narratives, with journalist Adama Juldeh Munu. A comparative analysis on both trans-Atlantic slavery and Ottoman slavery regarding Black people. Were Ottoman experiences anomalies or are they simply a reconfiguration of the same system?