Black Excellence: Lazarus Kgasi

February 11, 2026

https://www.npr.org/2026/02/04/g-s1-107656/how-a-black-fossil-digger-became-a-superstar-in-the-very-white-world-of-paleontology

Lazarus Kgasi walks with ease across a gently rolling landscape about an hour’s drive outside of Pretoria, South Africa. A few trees are sprinkled here and there but it’s mostly grass. Kgasi, a tall man with a big smile, knows the place well.

“We are going to see a fossil site in the Cradle of Humankind,” he says, referring to the UNESCO World Heritage site that has produced a stunning trove of early hominid fossils, helping prove that the African continent was indeed the birthplace of humanity.

“This is where the story started,” says Kgasi, age 52. “Every fossil here help[s] us to reconstruct the past — to tell the story of where do we come from.”