A socialist and an advocate of African independence and unity, Ki-Zerbo was also a vocal opponent of Thomas Sankara's revolutionary government.

He then attended the Grand Séminaire Saint-Pierre Claver at Koumi near Bobo Dioulasso, which trains young men for the Catholic priesthood.

In addition to teaching there, he had a job for several months with the weekly newspaper Afrique nouvelle, and also worked as a railway construction labourer.

After his studies, Ki-Zerbo became a French citizen and was employed as a history and geography teacher in Orléans, Paris and Dakar.

In Paris, Ki-Zerbo met other intellectuals, such as the Senegalese historian Cheik Anta Diop and Abdoulaye Wade, who was later to become president of Senegal.

As a result, Sekou Touré, the first president of independent Guinea, invited Ki-Zerbo and his wife along with other volunteers to come to Conakry to replace the French teachers who had left.

He wrote a teaching manual called Le Monde Africain Noire (Black African World), published in 1963.

Holenstein (2006) described that, in his book, Ki-Zerbo challenged the common belief of Africa as a black continent without culture and history.

[1] He claimed that Africa had reached an upper level of political, social and cultural development before the Atlantic slave trade and colonization.

Written only few years after independence, Histoire de l’Afrique Noire represented the hope of many Africans of a brighter future in liberty and self-determination.

Sitchet (2003), an Africultures reporter, argued that from 1972 to 1978 Ki-Zerbo was an executive member of UNESCO (United Nations Education Scientific and Cultural Organization).

Holenstein (2006) insisted that on the basis of a critic on the relation north–south imperialism, Ki-Zerbo forecast an endogenous development that will take seriously ecological and social skills, and the African cultural identity.

The syndicate and MLN played a big role in the popular movement organization on 3 January 1966 that brought down the President Maurice Yaméogo.

Ki-Zerbo extended his fights internationally to make people recognize slavery as a crime against humanity and that Africa should get reparations for this.