Diakité was born in New York City 1940. Following his parents' divorce, his mother married a journalist from Nigeria, and he and his three siblings spent most of their teenage years there. Encouraged by his stepfather's important role in the struggle for independence from Britain, Diakité developed his own interests in journalism and human rights. Upon returning to New York City in the 60’s, he earned a law degree at La Salle Extension University in 1967.
Career
Inspired by documentary filmmakers in New York at the time, he earned a diploma in documentary filmmaking at the New York Institute of Photography under George Wallach. He arrived in Sweden as a foreign student in 1968 and earned a Swedish B.A. and an M.A. in film at the Department of Film Studies, Stockholm University under the guidance of Professor Rune Waldekranz, its founder. In 1973, Diakité won an Honorable Mention prize for a film on youth in Harlem at the Grenoble Festival of Short films. After completing studies for a Ph.D. in film history at Stockholm University he published the draft of his dissertation as a book entitled A Piece of The Glory: A Survey of African American Filmmakers and Their Struggles with Popular American Myths in 1992. After yet another stay in Nigeria, where he established the film unit at the Centre for Nigerian Cultural Studies, Ahmadu Bello University. In 1992, Diakité earned an LL.M. at the Faculty of Law, Lund University, and a :sv:Licentiatexamen#Juris_licentiat|Juris licentiat in 2007. Diakité has published articles on film and human rights law for several international publications, and has headed several projects on the rights of people of African descent. He is also the publisher of The Lundian Magazine, an English language newsletter in Sweden, and is the director and CEO of The English International Association of Lund, an NGO based in Lund, Sweden. In 2008 he published Not Even in Your Dreams, a semi-autobiographical work studying child abuse in Africa. Diakité is currently the Senior Researcher Emeritus at Raoul Wallenberg Institute in Lund, Sweden. His current research at the institute examines focuses on African diaspora issues. He has also researched human rights and migrant workers in Africa.
