AFROCENTRIC CULTURE BY DESIGN

Tribute: Civil Rights Trail Blazer Rev. Fred Shuttesworth

2011-10-28T05:35:00.000-07:00

The Rev. Fred L. Shuttlesworth, left, with Ralph Abernathy and Dr. Martin Luther King in 1963.

The Rev. Fred L. Shuttlesworth

Civil Rights Leader who survived beatings and bombings in Alabama a half-century ago as he fought against racial injustice alongside the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., died on Wednesday in Birmingham, Ala. He was 89.

He died at Princeton Baptist Medical Center, his wife, Sephira Bailey Shuttlesworth, said. He also lived in Birmingham.

It was in that city in the spring of 1963 that Mr. Shuttlesworth, an important ally of Dr. King, organized two tumultuous weeks of daily demonstrations by black children, students, clergymen and others against a rigidly segregated society.

Graphic scenes of helmeted police officers and firefighters under the direction of T. Eugene (Bull) Connor, Birmingham’s intransigent public safety commissioner, scattering peaceful marchers with fire hoses, police dogs and nightsticks, provoked a national outcry.
The brutality helped galvanize the nation’s conscience, as did the Ku Klux Klan’s bombing of a black church in Birmingham that summer, which killed four girls at Sunday school. Those events led to passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, after the historic Alabama marches that year from Selma to Montgomery, which Mr. Shuttlesworth also helped organize. The laws were the bedrock of civil rights legislation.

“Without Fred Shuttlesworth laying the groundwork, those demonstrations in Birmingham would not have been as successful,” said Andrew M. Manis, author of “A Fire You Can’t Put Out,” a biography of Mr. Shuttlesworth. “Birmingham led to Selma, and those two became the basis of the civil rights struggle.”

Mr. Shuttlesworth, he added, had “no equal in terms of courage and putting his life in the line of fire” to battle segregation.
Mr. Shuttlesworth joined with Dr. King in 1957 as one of the four founding ministers of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the engine of Dr. King’s effort to unify the black clergy and their flocks to combat Jim Crow laws. At the time, Mr. Shuttlesworth was leader of the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights, which he had helped form in 1956 to replace the Alabama offices of the N.A.A.C.P., shut down for years by court injunction.

Outside their roles as men of the cloth and civil rights advocates, however, Mr. Shuttlesworth and Dr. King stood in sharp contrast to each other in terms of background, personality and strategies.
Dr. King was a polished product of Atlanta’s black middle class. A graduate of Morehouse College, he held a Ph.D. in systematic theology from Boston University. Fred Shuttlesworth was a child of poor black Alabama whose ministerial degree was from an unaccredited black school. (He later earned a master’s degree in education from Alabama State College.)

Where Dr. King could deliver thunderous oratory and move audiences by his reasoned convictions and faith, Mr. Shuttlesworth was fiery, whether preaching in the pulpit or standing up to Bull Connor, who dueled with him for years in street protests and boycotts leading up to their historic 1963 showdown.

Diane McWhorter, the author of “Carry Me Home,” the Pulitzer Prize-winning 2001 book about the struggle in Birmingham, wrote in an e-mail that Mr. Shuttlesworth was known among some civil rights activists as “the Wild Man from Birmingham.”

“Among the youthful ‘elders’ of the movement,” she added, “he was Martin Luther King’s most effective and insistent foil: blunt where King was soothing, driven where King was leisurely, and most important, confrontational where King was conciliatory — meaning, critically, that he was more upsetting than King in the eyes of the white public.”
Mr. Shuttlesworth was temperamental, even obstinate, and championed action and confrontation over words. He could antagonize segregationists and allies alike, quarreling with his allies behind closed doors.

But few doubted his courage. In the years before 1963 he was arrested time and again — 30 to 40 times by his count — on charges aimed at impeding peaceful protests. He was repeatedly jailed and twice the target of bombs.
In one instance, on Christmas night 1956, he survived an attack in which six sticks of dynamite were detonated outside his parsonage bedroom as he lay in bed. “The wall and the floor were blown out,” Ms. McWhorter wrote, “and the mattress heaved into the air, supporting Shuttlesworth like a magic carpet.”

When he tried to enroll his children in an all-white school in 1957, Klansmen attacked him with bicycle chains and brass knuckles. When a doctor treating his head wounds marveled that he had not suffered a concussion, Mr. Shuttlesworth famously replied, “Doctor, the Lord knew I lived in a hard town, so he gave me a hard head.”

Freddie Lee Robinson was born on March 18, 1922, in rural Mount Meigs, Ala. He took the surname Shuttlesworth from a man his mother, Alberta Robinson, later married. He had eight siblings, and the family supplemented its income by sharecropping and making moonshine liquor, an activity for which Mr. Shuttlesworth was sentenced to two years’ probation in 1940.

He was a truck driver in the early 1940s but was soon drawn to pulpits in Selma and Birmingham. He became pastor of Bethel Baptist Church in Birmingham in 1953 and joined the Alabama chapter of the N.A.A.C.P. before it was outlawed from the state in 1956. He and others established the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights to carry on the chapter’s work and came to challenge the white power structure on many fronts.
In 1963 he welcomed Dr. King to Birmingham to take part in the protests. They planned a boycott of white merchants coupled with large marches that they expected would provoke overreaction by city officials and show the world the depth of white resistance.

“We wanted confrontation, nonviolent confrontation, to see if it would work,” Mr. Shuttlesworth later said. “Not just for Birmingham — for the nation. We were trying to launch a systematic, wholehearted battle against segregation, which would set the pace for the nation.”
Mr. Shuttlesworth suffered chest injuries when the pummeling spray of fire hoses was turned on him. “I’m sorry I missed it,” Mr. Connor said when told of the injuries, The New York Times reported in 1963. “I wish they’d carried him away in a hearse.”

After 1965, with the new civil rights legislation on the books and Dr. King turning his attention to poverty and black problems in the urban North, Mr. Shuttlesworth remained focused on local issues in Birmingham and Cincinnati, where he had moved to take the pulpit of a black church. He traveled frequently between Ohio and Alabama before returning permanently to Birmingham in 2008 for treatment after suffering a stroke the previous year.

Besides his wife, Mr. Shuttlesworth is survived by four daughters, Patricia Massengill, Ruby “Ricky” Bester, Carolyn Shuttlesworth and Maria Murdock; a son, Fred Jr.; a stepdaughter, Audrey Wilson; five sisters, Betty Williams, Truzella Brazil, Ernestine Grimes, Iwilder Reid and Eula Mitchell; 14 grandchildren; 20 great-grandchildren; and one great-great-grandchild.

With the death of Dr. King, and later Dr. King’s chief aide, the Rev. Ralph Abernathy, Mr. Shuttlesworth eventually assumed the role of elder statesman in the civil rights movement. In 2004 he was named president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, but he stepped down the same year, complaining that “deceit, mistrust and a lack of spiritual discipline and truth have eaten at the core of this once-hallowed organization.”

He also came under criticism by gay rights advocates in 2004 when he lent his name to a campaign in Cincinnati to stop the city from passing a gay rights ordinance.

He remained an honored figure in Birmingham, however. In 2008, the city renamed its principal airport Birmingham-Shuttlesworth International Airport.

In 2009, in a wheelchair, he was front and center among other dignitaries in an audience of about 6,000 at the city’s Boutwell Auditorium to watch a live broadcast as the nation’s first black president, Barack Obama, was sworn in.

He had encountered Mr. Obama, then a senator from Illinois, two years earlier, along with former President Bill Clinton, during a commemoration in Selma of the Selma-to-Montgomery voting rights marches. As a crowd crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge, where demonstrators were beaten and tear-gassed on “Bloody Sunday,” March 7, 1965, Mr. Obama pushed Mr. Shuttlesworth’s wheelchair.

TRIBUTE TO MEDIA HISTORIAN GIL NOBLE

2011-10-16T10:48:00.000-07:00

Sankofa*

Gil bought new meaning to 'Like It Is'. He tells Our story in a way that hasn't been told before. Gil felt that Black History is important and vital to the community. This he took seriously, because he felt race was and lack of knowledge of our true history was and is a serious issue.

So as he reports to those that are interested... he is serious in the reality he is rendering a service of vital need.

Early in my childhood my mother would watch Like It Is in the seventies and she would sit me down and talk about what was going on with the Civil Rights Movement. I became aware of what was going on early in life. I became familiar with.... Martin L.King, Malcolm, Adam Clayton Powell and others.

This show was a learning experience and his footage of past events are so vast you will find it nowhere on the air. I thank him for his years of dedicated service to the Black experience, culture and caring and airing what concerns us.

Truthful journalism!

Gil joggles many hats...
Not only is he an extraordinary journalist, he is a painter , sculptor and a pianist.

Thanks so much channel 7 for being courageous enough to allow 'Like It Is' to run 43 years strong! And Gil you are loved and we are praying for your recovery.
"We cannot duplicate Gil Noble or 'Like It Is,'!

God Bless!
==========

Noble began at Ch. 7 in 1967. A year later he became host of "Like It Is," which has become an important outlet for area viewers to get information on topics important to the African-American community. He's focused only on "Like It Is" since 1986.

Gil Noble will not return to hosting Ch. 7's 'Like It Is' after suffering stroke in July.

Two months after he suffered a severe stroke, the family of WABC/Ch. 7 legend says Gil Noble will no longer be able to host the long-running public affairs show "Like It Is."

Davis said Noble, 79, continues to recuperate and "according to his family, is making progress."

He's also been a tireless advocate for the African-American community.

Outside of his work at Ch. 7, Noble has produced documentaries on W.E.B Du Bois, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr.

Ch. 7 has been airing classic installments of "Like It Is" since word got out of Noble's condition. The show airs Sundays at noon.

'Heroic Africans' Exhibit Opens at the Met

2011-10-10T05:32:00.001-07:00

Ask the average American to identify a legendary African leader, and they'll likely name anti-apartheid warrior Nelson Mandela or Egyptian pharaoh Tutankhamen; both deserving, iconic figures.

But the Mother Continent has nurtured centuries of great kings, queens, chiefs and priests whose names and achievements were largely erased from memory when colonialism disrupted oral history traditions and scattered biographical objects.

Curator Alisa LaGamma and the Metropolitan Museum of Art spent the past four years tracking down more than 100 sculptures, masks and photographs created in West and Central Africa between the 12th and early 20th centuries, drawing them from 40 collections across Germany, Switzerland, Belgium, the United Kingdom, Portugal, France and the United States.

And they didn't stop there. The new exhibit, "Heroic Africans: Legendary Leaders, Iconic Sculptures," not only gathers rare pieces never before seen in the United States (and in some cases, reunites sculptures that have been separated for centuries), but its curator has taken great pains to actually name the men and women depicted in these pre-colonial masterpieces.

"We are taking an unusual approach: We've taken some very, very famous pieces of African art, and some rare pieces, and we've tried to identify the people who are the subjects of those pieces," says LaGamma, curator of the department of the arts of Africa, Oceania and the Americas.

"These are the celebrities of historic African culture that were highly influential, and were considered to be important and notable figures that deserved to be depicted," she says. "We've included the stories that we know, but many were lost because they were passed down orally, and a lot of that was not recorded when the continent was colonized."

Chief Nosa Isekhure, the isekhure of Benin. (Courtesy Phyllis Galembo and Steven Kasher Gallery)

The exhibit focuses on eight sub-Saharan realms, including the Akan peoples of Ghana, the Kingdom of Benin in Nigeria, the Bangwa and Kom chiefdoms of the Cameroon grasslands, and the Chokwe of Angola and Zambia.

It opens with the famous ivory Queen Mother pendant mask immortalizing Queen Idia, warrior and mother of Oba Esigie, one of Benin's most dynamic kings. Esigie's early 16th century claim to the throne was contested by his brother, and he credited his mother's political prowess and magical powers for his success.

"She became his most trusted adviser," explains LaGamma. The elaborately detailed and realistic mask is hollowed to be filled with powerful medicines and herbs. "This would have been worn around his neck or waist like a pendant or locket," says LaGamma. "It's an amulet protecting him, and also a portrait honoring his mother.".
Ref: THE DAILY NEWS*

2011-10-04T05:56:00.001-07:00

October 4, 2011

Today In History

‘Hubert G. (H. Rap) Brown, writer, activist, and Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee Chairman, was born in Baton Rouge, LA, on this date October 4, 1943. Brown has changed his name to Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin.’

: Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin)

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial

2011-08-28T10:54:00.001-07:00

Soon after Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination in 1968, there was talk about creating a memorial to the civil rights icon. Finally, the memorial will be formally unveiled in Washington, D.C., on the National Mall. King's fraternity, Alpha Phi Alpha, headed the fundraising efforts for the project, which cost an estimated $120 million. The memorial features a 30-foot-high granite statue of the slain leader (called the "Stone of Hope") and two other pieces of stone that symbolize the "mountain of despair." Visitors will pass through the "mountains" on the way to "hope." In addition, a 450-foot granite wall will include portions of speeches from the great orator, and 24 niches will adorn the walkway in memory of the people who lost their lives in the civil rights moment. President Barack Obama is slated to attend the memorial's dedication, which will include performances from Aretha Franklin and Stevie Wonder.

African Origins of Early Humanity

2011-08-16T08:24:00.000-07:00

Africa: Birthplace of Humanity

by Dr. Leonard Jeffries

One of the oldest fossil finds of early man was made in Africa in 1960 by archaeologist L. S. B. Leakey. He named his find Zinjanthropus, meaning Eastern Man. It was found in Olduvai Gorge in northern Tanzania which is an archaeologists paradise. Many ancient fossils and stone tools have been found there over the years. There are five distinct layers of strata of the earth visible in the cliffs.

The oldest was formed more than two million years ago. One day while climbing up the slopes Mrs. Leakey discovered two teeth embedded in the rock side of the gorge. After nineteen days of digging the Leakeys uncovered an almost complete skull and stone tools.

The radiocarbon 14 method of determining the age of the fossil finds only allows the scientist to test an object that does not go back more than 50,000 years. Because Zinjanthropus was much older than 50,000 years another newer method to determine the age of a fossil find was used.

This method was called Potassium Argon and allows the scientist to test as an object that goes back 2,000,000 years. Scientists at the University of California tested Zinjanthropus and believe that this early man was 1,750,000 years old.

Over the past twenty-five years various early fossil finds have been made in Africa and have been scientifically dated to be millions of years old. One of the finds recently discovered and found to be several millions of years old named "Lucy" and is the subject of a best-selling book. These discoveries and others have firmly established Africa as the cradle of humanity.

The African continent is a treasure trove of ancient history. From the sands and rock outcroppings of the Sahara desert in the north to the caves of South Africa, from the Nile River Valley to the Congo River and lakes of Central Africa, from the highlands of the Ethiopian plateau to the depths of the Olduvai Gorge in East Africa, the continent is continuously yielding from its soil the scientific and archaeological evidence of the evolving and unfolding drama of human history. This historical evidence is found in the bits of bone and fossil remains of Humanity's ancient African ancestors.

It can also be seen in various kinds of stone tools uncovered from the African soil, made by the world's oldest tool makers. It is clearly recorded in the rock and cave paintings and shattered pottery pieces, scattered all over the continent, by the world's first artists who captured early human conduct.

This unfolding saga of the human experience in Africa reveals and points to a series of startling discoveries in Olduvai Gorge in Tanganyika and Kenya that scientifically supports the belief that early humanity originated in East Africa millions of years ago and then spread with his tools and early culture to Asia and Europe.

In the Congo River Basin and Great Lakes of Central Africa archaeologists unearthed the remains of the Ishongo people who lived some 8,000 years ago and used a counting system inscribed on bone, the earliest record in the world of mathematical notation.

Fortunately, this new understanding of Africa's place in history has been supported by the latest scientific discoveries to that scholars and researchers are able to systematically destroy the persistently held view of Africa as the Dark Continent and Africans as savages who contributed nothing to human development.

hotep*

Edmonia Lewis sculptor of African- Native American heritage

2011-07-14T09:22:00.001-07:00

Fri, 1843-07-14

Edmonia Lewis was born on this date in the mid-nineteenth century, a pioneer African-American artist believed to be the first woman sculptor of African-American and Native American heritage.

Little is known about Lewis's early life. Sources give differing birth dates: 1840, 1843, 1844, or 1845, and various birthplaces. She claimed to haven been born in Greenbrush, New York, near Albany, but she also said in another account that she was born in Greenhigh, Ohio. One researcher suggests she was born in Newark, in 1844 to middle-class immigrants from the West Indies. Her father was African and her mother was a member of the Ojibwe community.

In 1859, Lewis entered Oberlin College in Ohio, where she excelled at drawing. Known as Wildfire in the Ojibwe community, Lewis changed her name to Mary Edmonia during her time at Oberlin, the name she usually used to sign her sculptures and her correspondence. Unfortunately when a teacher at Oberlin lost some paintbrushes, Lewis was accused of the theft; she was also accused of attempted murder when two girls fell ill after drinking mulled wine, which Lewis allegedly served them. Although acquitted of both charges, she was not permitted to graduate.

In 1863, she moved to Boston where abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison introduced her to sculptor Edward Brackett, who became her first mentor. Lewis's earliest sculptures were medallions with portraits of white antislavery leaders and Civil War heroes, which she modeled in clay and cast in plaster. Her bust of Colonel Robert Gould Shaw, completed in 1865, which is owned by the Museum of Afro-American History in, Boston, depicted the young Bostonian as he led the all-Black battalion, the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Regiment, in battle against Confederate forces. Sales of replicas of the bust enabled Lewis to travel to Italy in 1865, where she established a studio in Rome.

Lewis often drew upon her dual ancestry for insight. Her best-known work, Forever Free (1867), was inspired by the Emancipation Proclamation. The high point of Lewis's career was the completion in 1876 of The Death of Cleopatra, held by the National Museum of American Art, Washington, D.C., which created a sensation at the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition that same year. Other sculptors generally depicted Cleopatra contemplating death; Lewis showed Cleopatra seated upon her throne after death, her head thrown back. In her right hand, she holds the poisonous snake that has bitten her, while her left arm hangs lifelessly. This realistic portrayal ran contrary to the sentimentality about death that was prevalent at the time.

Edmonia Lewis was reported as still living in Rome in 1911, but the date and location of her death are not known.

Reference:
Black Women in America: An Historical Encyclopedia
Volumes 1 and 2,

Philip Emeagwali Black scientist with a social responsibility

2011-06-30T06:04:00.001-07:00

Philip Emeagwali was born on this date 1954. He is a Nigerian computer scientist and internet pioneer.

He was raised in the town of Onitsha in Southeastern Nigeria. Called "Calculus" by his schoolmates, Emeagwali mastered the subject at age 14, and could out-calculate his instructors. He had to drop out of school because his family could not afford to send all eight children, but he continued studying on his own and got a general certificate of education from the University of London.

At the age of 17, he received a full scholarship to Oregon State University where he majored in math. After graduation, he attended George Washington University and received two M.A.s, one in civil engineering and the other in marine engineering, and a Master's in mathematics from the University of Maryland. He later earned his doctorate from the University of Michigan in civil engineering (scientific computing).

During his academic years, in 1974, Emeagwali read a 1922 science fiction article on how to use 64,000 mathematicians to forecast the weather for the whole Earth. Inspired by that article, he worked out a theoretical scheme for using 64,000 far-flung processors to be evenly distributed around the Earth, to forecast the weather. He called it a HyperBall international network of computers. Today, an international network of computers is called the Internet.

Dr. Emeagwali's greatest achievement was his work on The Connection Machine. This instrument used 65,000 computers linked in parallel to form the fastest computer on Earth. This computer can perform 3.1 billion calculations per second. This is faster than the theoretical top speed of the Cray Supercomputer. Though he did not "invent" The Connection Machine, his work on it won Philip Emeagwali the Gordon Bell Prize of 1989. Though he received the prize, there is no evidence that his work was ever accepted for publication in the peer-reviewed scientific literature, nor that it had any other lasting impact on the field of high-performance computing.

Apple Computer has used his multiprocessing technology to manufacture its dual-processor Power Mac G4, which had a peak speed of 3.1 billion calculations per second. IBM used it to manufacture its $134.4 million supercomputer, which had a peak speed of 3.1 trillion calculations per second. IBM has announced its plan to manufacture a 65,000-processor supercomputer, which will have a peak speed of 1,000 trillion calculations per second, and every supercomputer manufacturer will incorporate thousands of processors in their supercomputers.

Another measure of his influence is that one million students have written biographical essays on him, and thousands wrote to thank him for inspiring them.

President Bill Clinton called him a powerful role model for young people and used the phrase "another Emeagwali" to describe children with the potential to become computer geniuses. Emeagwali considers himself to be "a
Black scientist with a social responsibility to communicate science to the Black Diaspora." He has a dual sensibility of being deeply rooted in science while using it as a tool to remind his people in the Diaspora of where they have been and who they are. He also describes his work as a "public intellectual.” He uses his mathematical and computer expertise to develop methods for extracting more petroleum from oil fields.

During his career, Emeagwali has received many prizes, awards and honors. These include the Computer Scientist of the Year Award of the National Technical Association (1993), Distinguished Scientist Award of the World Bank (1998), Best Scientist in Africa Award of the Pan African Broadcasting, Heritage and Achievement Awards (2001), and Gallery of Prominent Refugees of the United Nations (2001). He was profiled in the book "Making It in America" as one of "400 models of eminent Americans," and in "Who's Who in 20th Century America." In a televised speech, President Bill Clinton described Emeagwali as “one of the great minds of the Information Age.”

Academically, Emeagwali studied for a Ph.D. degree from the University of Michigan from 1987 through 1991. His thesis was not accepted and he was not awarded the degree. Emeagwali filed a court challenge, claiming that the school decision violated his civil rights and that the university had discriminated against him in several ways because of his race. The court challenge was dismissed, as was an appeal to the Michigan state Court of Appeals.

His wife, Dale, was born in Baltimore, was educated at Georgetown University School of Medicine, conducted research at the National Institutes of Health and the University of Michigan, and taught at the University of Minnesota. In 1996, she won the Scientist of the Year Award of the National Technical Association for her cancer research. They live near Washington, D.C. with their 11-year-old son.

Reference: Dr. Phillip Emeagwali

Gnostic Books Omitted from the Bible

2011-06-27T12:08:00.001-07:00

The books omitted from the bible are the so-called missing books of the bible. First any Christian should know that the Roman Emperor Constantine played a big part in putting the Bible that we know together. The First Council of Nicea was held in 325 AD and this meeting created the first uniform Christian doctrine of belief, what we still know today as the Nicene Creed. A little over fifty years later this creed with its “true God” and Jesus as the “only Son of God" was enforced with the full might of the Romans throughout the Empire as Christianity was made the official religion: One God, one Empire, one Religion.

    The most interesting alternative thinking in early Christianity is found in the lost texts of the Gnostic Gospels. Also called the Gnostic Bible these Gnostic scriptures are a series of religious texts that were discovered accidentally by two farmers in 1945 in Egypt near Nag Hammadi, and therefore, also go by the name the Nag Hammadi Library. What makes these texts interesting in relation to Christianity is that they are estimated to date back to between the 2nd and 4th century AD, which puts them very close to the time of Jesus and right in the time of early Christianity.

    Knowing that the Church banned Gnostic belief as heresy, anyone with an open mind should be interested in what a Gnostic believed if we want to understand the Church and its history. In our search for God we should ask: why were these books omitted from the Bible? What knowledge was so dangerous to the Roman Church and why?

   In The Gnostic Scriptures we find The Testimony of Truth, which tells us that, “Do not expect, therefore, the carnal resurrection, which is destruction.” This view, dating back to about the second century, is very much aligned with modern science—the flesh dissolves.

   The text is interesting, because it also has another view on why Adam and Eve where cast out of Paradise. It lets us know that, “The serpent was wiser than all the animals that were in Paradise, and he persuaded Eve, saying, ‘On the day when you eat from the tree which is in the midst of Paradise, the eyes of your mind will be opened.’”

   The Testimony of Truth then boldly asks:

“Of what sort is the God? First he maliciously refused Adam from eating of the tree of knowledge. And secondly he said, “Adam, where are you?” God does not have foreknowledge; otherwise, would he not know from the beginning?”

Later the text answers the question of what sort of God this is by saying: “I am the jealous God; I will bring the sins of the fathers upon the children.”

   In the East the serpent is the symbol of Kundalini energy and not a symbol of evil or temptation as in the Bible. But, why are serpents wisdom in the East? Kundalini is the power of consciousness, or supreme energy, also called mother of the universe. In Sanskrit the word means “coiled up,” and therefore, the symbol of a snake is the ancient symbolic representation, not of the evil, but of the supreme power of consciousness.

   If we for example call the Kundalini energy for the Holy Spirit, then this could give us a different perspective on the words of John: “Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.”

   In this interpretation it is the Holy Spirit as the power of consciousness that gives us eternal life. And one could even suggest that the Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowledge in Genesis might be one and the same. That would make eternal life possible through knowledge of the truth (good and evil) as we just saw in the Bhagavadagita.

   In her book The Gnostic Gospels, Elaine Pagels, points towards the serpent as an instructor and she quotes from the text, The Hypostasis of the Archons:

“Then the Female Spiritual Principle came in the Snake, the Instructor, and it taught them, saying, “…you shall not die; for it was out of jealousy that he said to you. Rather, your eyes shall open, and you shall become like gods, recognizing evil and good.”…And the arrogant Ruler cursed the Woman…and…the Snake.”

   Here Eve, the “Mother of the Living,” is a feminine spiritual principle that raises Adam from his material condition to bring him out of ignorance toward becoming like a God. It would seem natural to human nature (and historical correct) that arrogant male rulers would become jealous about this competition, whereby both the woman and the snake were cursed.

   Through history, and even today, this curse has proven to be a powerful political tool of suppressing women with male aggression. And at the same time, the important question of personal identity has been left out. It seems logical to conclude that when these words were written around the second century, Gnostics saw the clear danger in the form that Christianity was taking as it became an organized religion.

   In a modern day society, it certainly must seem good to most people that Adam ate from the Tree of Knowledge. I am sure that most of us are happy to be conscious and able to think for ourselves rather than being told what to think. In a democracy where everyone works together to solve the problems ahead, it is reasonable to give every individual the freedom to think.

   However, the view of the Bible goes in the opposite direction, believing that “paradise was lost,” which could be interpreted as ignorance is bliss, and I find it very interesting to note the negative direction. The Bible has a negative perspective from Adam and Eve being thrown out of paradise to the Book of Revelation—from paradise to the end of the world. This negative view on the world is also reflected through the views of “evil” and “sinners” that still today deserve punishment. The God of the Bible is an angry God that judges over irresponsible children living in an evil world.

   The Gnostic perspective on the other hand is positive. It talks about ignorance instead evil, and sees a positive future through enlightenment and the gaining of knowledge. Surely such a view is far more optimistic than the pessimism of the Bible, and with a positive outlook on life it should be much more possible to create a positive future.

   The Gnostics called the God of the Bible a “jealous God” because this God said: “I am God, and there is no other.” Looking at the history of the Church enforcing this one and only God, it is clear that this God has been much more angry than loving. We should not forget that the Roman Catholic Church was created on the foundation of the Roman Empire, after Emperor Constantine won the first battle in the name of the cross and Christianity later became the state religion of Rome. History also tells us that the doctrine of the Incarnation took root about the same time as Pope Urban II sent Christians of on the Fist Crusade with “God wills it!” After more than a thousand years of debate, in 1098 Saint Anselm published his Cur Deus Homo—Why God Became Man—and Jesus were since transformed from prophet into the one and only “son of God.”

Before we become upset at the past, it is worth taking into consideration that humanity has gone through a transformation as our thinking has evolved. Therefore, now that the children have become adults and outgrown their parents, I find it more important to ask where we should look for guidance. And as a philosopher, it is clear for me that we should look for truth by ourselves, and never accept someone else’s truth. It was for this reason that Luther translated the Bible, so that we could all seek the truth by ourselves, instead of having it dictated to us.

   It is not only possible but fairly easy to find other interpretations in the Bible that speak of an incorporeal resurrection. The Bible does in fact make a clear distinction between the body and the spirit. In 1 Corinthians we find: “I declare to you, brothers, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable.”

   With this separation between the mortal and the immortal, Jesus uses the wind as a metaphor to describe the eternal spirit: “The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.”

   In 1 Corinthians 15:40, we find that this distinction is made clear: “There are also heavenly bodies and there are earthly bodies; but the splendor of the heavenly bodies is one kind, and the splendor of the earthly bodies is another.”

   The Gnostic Scriptures offer an account that supplements this view of the Bible:

“If one does not understand how blowing wind came into existence, he will blow away with it. If one does not understand how body, which he bears, came into existence, he will perish with it...Whoever will not understand how he came will not understand how he will go.”

The Igbo People* Proverb

2011-06-20T08:23:00.000-07:00

Agụọ nwere nchekwube/olịleanya a dịghị egbu egbu. (Igbo)
The hunger that has hope for its satisfaction does not kill. (English)

Background, Explanation, and Everyday Use

The Igbo people inhabit southeastern Nigeria. “Igbo” refers to both the people and their language. Occupying a rainforest region, the Igbo were traditionally mainly farmers and their lifestyle was patterned on the farming cycle.

Usually between the end of the farming season (when most of the crops from the previous harvest had been consumed and the seedlings planted) and the next harvest, there is a food scarcity spell called ụgalị.

This Igbo proverb was mostly used at this time, a period of about five to seven months, to counsel hope and endurance until the next harvest, a future of abundance. The elders used this proverb to teach the young ones that no matter how trying and challenging a situation might be, one usually survives it if one looks beyond the particular moment with hope for a brighter future and, therefore, endures with dignity.

However, one neither hopes nor endures in inertia. Both hope and endurance imply hard work. So this proverb ties to another Igbo proverb, aka aja aja na eweta ọnụ mmanụ mmanụ (“soily” hands bring about an oily mouth). With these two proverbs, people are encouraged to be active and diligent while they hope for a better future. The majority of the Igbo are Christians today and they acknowledge that not even the Lord would feed the sheep that shies away from the pasture (cf. Psalm 23).

Biblical Parallels

At the basis of the survival of the Israelites from their slavery, Exodus, wilderness, foreign occupation and exile experiences was their hope, the hope for the Promised Land, the hope for the Messiah, and the hope for the return. The hope in the Second Coming and in the resurrection sustained the early Christians through their persecution.

This hope is not idle; it is tied to faith, as “the assurance of things hoped for (Hebrews 11:1). It brings joy to the just (Proverbs 10:28). When the Israelites were wearied with the length of their journey, it was hope that helped them find new life for their strength (Isaiah 57:10).

And when due to their exile they thought their bones were dried up and wanted to give up hope, the Lord sent Ezekiel to remind them thus: “Behold, I will open your graves, and raise you from your graves… and I will bring you home into the land of Israel… And I will put my Spirit within you, and you shall live…” (Ezekiel 37:11-14). St. Paul argues that he shares in the prophets’ hope in God for the resurrection (Acts 24:15).

This hope is not without a price, however. In his Letter to the Romans, Paul writes: “More than that, we rejoice in our suffering, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us” (Romans 5:3-5). It is in this hope that “we are saved,” the hope that enables us to wait with patience for what we do not yet see (Romans 8:24).

Paul also reminds the Corinthians that it is in hope for the share of the crop that both the person using the plough and the thresher work (Corinthians 9:10).

Hence he berates the Thessalonians who, under the guise of waiting for the Lord’s Second Coming, shunned work: “Now we command you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you keep away from any brother who is living in idleness… we were not idle when we were with you… but with toil and labor we worked night and day, that we might not burden any of you… If anyone will not work, let him not eat” (Corinthians 3:6-10).

Juneteenth Gospel Music Festival

2011-06-15T11:56:00.000-07:00

Juneteenth Community Festival will take place on June 17-18 at Manhattan City Park.

This Manhattan summer tradition continues with providing great gospel music.

The festival begins on Friday afternoon, June 17, in the Wefald Pavilion and GTM Family Center, 1101 Fremont, with a Manhattan Black Historical display.

Food vendors will be ready to feed you dinner by 5 p.m. so you’re ready to sing with the Gospel Fest at 7 p.m. as they take the stage at the Larry Norvell Band Shell.

If basketball is your game, a 3 on 3 tournament begins at 7 p.m. Don’t be anxious to leave when it gets dark because that’s when Movies on the Grass will be showing “The Wiz”.

The celebration continues on Saturday, June 18.

A parade starting at 10 a.m. will march down Poyntz Avenue beginning at the Manhattan Town Center and travel to City Park. “The Grand Marshall is Col. Brown from Fort Riley”, says Don Slater, Juneteenth festival planner. “T. here will be lots of things for kids to do at City Park throughout the day.

Little Apple Amusement will have their train running, and a jumbo caterpillar crawl inflatable.”

The Don Heines’s band, “Mystic” from Kansas City, will take the stage Saturday night at 8 p.m. as the culmination to a great Juneteenth Community Festival.

Additional Info...

Manhattan Convention & Visitors Bureau
www.manhattancvb.org

Juneteenth Community Festival will take place on June 17-18 at Manhattan City Park. This Manhattan summer tradition continues with providing great gospel music.

Let's come out for the celebration and parade commemorating JUNETEENTH!

MAY 19 CELEBRATING THE LIFE OF MALCOM X

2011-05-19T07:18:00.000-07:00

SANKOFA*

A time to remember.......
Remember because they want us to forget........
Remember just because he was for equality for our people......
Remember him for showing us all, that you can Self Educate yourself......

Malcolm X

"My alma mater was books, a good library... I could spend the rest of my life reading, just satisfying my curiosity."

"A race of people is like an individual man; until it uses its own talent, takes pride in its own history, expresses its own culture, affirms its own self-hood, it can never fulfill itself.

By Malcolm X

"When a person places the proper value on freedom, there is nothing under the sun that he will not do to acquire that freedom. Whenever you hear a man saying he wants freedom, but in the next breath he is going to tell you what he won't do to get it, or what he doesn't believe in doing in order to get it, he doesn't believe in freedom. A man who believes in freedom will do anything under the sun to acquire . . . or preserve his freedom."

"Without education, you're not going anywhere in this world."

"A man who stands for nothing will fall for anything."

========================

Beginning in the 1960s, Malcolm was invited to participate in numerous debates, including forums on radio stations (Los Angeles, New York, Washington), television programs ("Open Mind," "The Mike Wallace News Program") and universities (Harvard Law School, Howard University, Columbia University).

In 1963, the New York Times reported that Malcolm X was the second most sought after speaker in the United States.

On June 29, 1963 Malcolm lead the Unity Rally in Harlem. It was one of the nations largest civil rights events.

In March 1964, after his split with the NOI, Malcolm forms the Muslim Mosque, Inc. Several months later, he also organizes the Organizations of Afro-American Unity (OAAU).

Malcolm's autobiography, which he worked on for two years with writer Alex Haley, was published in November 1965.

THE IMMORTAL LIFE OF HENRIETTA LACK

2011-05-03T10:32:00.000-07:00

Her name was Henrietta Lacks, but scientists know her as HeLa. She was a poor Southern tobacco farmer who worked the same land as her slave ancestors, yet her cells—taken without her knowledge—became one of the most important tools in medicine.

Henrietta, quite possibly, got substandard care because she was black. Their treatment often began later, medication was scarcer and black patients would not question white doctors who frequently treated them inequitably, in less than equal facilities. The alternate reason for her lack of diagnosis and, perhaps, improper treatment, is that those were the days.

The first "immortal" human cells grown in culture, they are still alive today, though she has been dead for more than sixty years. If you could pile all HeLa cells ever grown onto a scale, they'd weigh more than 50 million metric tons—as much as a hundred Empire State Buildings.

HeLa cells were vital for developing the polio vaccine; uncovered secrets of cancer, viruses, and the atom bomb's effects; helped lead to important advances like in vitro fertilization, cloning, and gene mapping; and have been bought and sold by the billions.

Yet Henrietta Lacks remains virtually unknown, buried in an unmarked grave.

Now Rebecca Skloot takes us on an extraordinary journey, from the "colored" ward of Johns Hopkins Hospital in the 1950s to stark white laboratories with freezers full of HeLa cells; from Henrietta's small, dying hometown of Clover, Virginia—a land of wooden slave quarters, faith healings, and voodoo—to East Baltimore today, where her children and grandchildren live and struggle with the legacy of her cells.

Henrietta's family did not learn of her "immortality" until more than twenty years after her death, when scientists investigating HeLa began using her husband and children in research without informed consent.

And though the cells had launched a multimillion-dollar industry that sells human biological materials, her family never saw any of the profits. As Rebecca Skloot so brilliantly shows, the story of the Lacks family—past and present—is inextricably connected to the dark history of experimentation on African Americans, the birth of bioethics, and the legal battles over whether we control the stuff we are made of.

Over the decade it took to uncover this story, Rebecca became enmeshed in the lives of the Lacks family—especially Henrietta's daughter Deborah, who was devastated to learn about her mother's cells. She was consumed with questions: Had scientists cloned her mother?

Did it hurt her when researchers infected her cells with viruses and shot them into space? What happened to her sister, Elsie, who died in a mental institution at the age of fifteen? And if her mother was so important to medicine, why couldn't her children afford health insurance?

Intimate in feeling, astonishing in scope, and impossible to put down, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks captures the beauty and drama of scientific discovery, as well as its human consequences.

This book is emotionally inspiring..... THE IMMORTAL LIFE OF HENRIETTA LACK.

African Investigation:Genesis of African Science Dogon concept of space-time,

2011-04-29T04:40:00.000-07:00

The Dogon of Mali
============

In Mali, west Africa, lives a clan of people called the Dogon.
Their astronomical lore goes back thousands of years to about 3200 B.C. According to their traditions, their migrations began from the Northeast of Mali, about 1,400 years ago, finally leading them to their present habitat - a harsh, forbidding land abutting the Bandiagara Cliffs, in the southeastern Mali.

<The Dogons are a people well known by their cosmogony, their esotericism. They are also famous for their artistic abilities and vast knowledge about astrology, especially the Sirius star, which is the center of their religious teachings.

==================================

Their populations assessed to be about 300,000 people living in the South West of the Niger loop in the region of Mopti, Mali(Bandiagara, Koro, Banka), near Douentza and part of North of Burkina Faso(North west of Ouahigouya). Though clear links to the ancient Nilotic system are everywhere evident in their thought, they seem to have more or less independently elaborated ideas in astrophysics and cosmology that go well beyond what is known of ancient Nile Valley science. Such ideas are advanced enough to compare favorably with certain principles in Einsteinian physics and quantum mechanics.

How could a "pre-literate," post-neolithic people arrive at such a high level of thought? How could such a complex system be created without benefit of telescope, microscopes, mathematics, or any of the technical paraphernalia that undergird modern science. Brecher was racking his brains over these issues when he said: "The problem for us ... is how the Dogon could have known a host of astronomical facts, all of which are invisible to the unaided eye.

In particular, how, could they have known about the existence of Sirius B? How could they have known of its incredible density? It elliptical orbit? Its 50-year period? They have no business knowing any of this." This was blurted-out by an eminent M.I.T. scientist. It is not altogether easy to know how to assess the Dogon, and in many ways, they are the most astonishing and enigmatic people in Africa.

It's known that chaos is intrinsic to the universe for it is the undifferentiated "stuff" from which material space-time arises. The spider attaches himself to the original Tree, the acacia, i n the Dogon lore, in order to "weave the words of Ogo: "Placed at the center of the acacia, the spider wove its threads in a conical spiral for the placement of the warp, and by moving vertically, for the coming and going of the passing woof.

Through the fabric, it sifted the germs that had been hurried into the universe by spinning. The sound of its work, of the same nature as the word, grabbed them as they passed by and, with them, fastened its self at the crossing of the threads)Griaule and Dieterlen) This is another way of seeing the creation of the clusters in the universe as described by the Dogon.

It is very interesting to see the work of spiders applied in the theories of physics that have developed since 1984. In particle theories, the history(or movement) of a particle is represented by a line,but in string theories, matter in the time dimension ramifies differently: "A string, on the other hand,occupies a line in space at each moment of time. So, its history in space-time is a two-dimension surface called the world sheet

The world sheet of an open string is a strip. The world sheet of a closed string is a cylinder or tube. In string theories, what were previously thought of as particles are now pictured as waves traveling down a string, like waves on a vibrating kite string.

The Milky Way - This image is a good representation of the alignment of the planets in relation to size. The Dogon speak of disk-like primordial wrinkles which prefigure the spiraling worlds of stars that are to fill up the universe of Amma
==================================

The idea was that particles like the proton and the neutron could be regarded as waves on a string. The strong forces between the particles would correspond to pieces of string that went between the other bits of string, as in a spider's web[note emphasis].(Hawkings) This web imagery or analogy is constantly echoed by quantum theorists: "Quantum theory has shown that particles are not isolated grains of matter, but are probability patterns,interconnections in an inseparable cosmic web. Relativity theory ... has made these patterns come alive by revealing their intrinsically dynamic character."(F. Capra).

Over and over again we find the "web imagery" used in the physical description of the universe: "A nice image ... is the way cobwebs often unseen in ordinary light, become strikingly visible when dew that settles on their strands during the night is lit by the morning sun. The gossamer network of galaxies we see in the night sky is the shimmering dew on a cosmic cobweb , as visible mater outlines the shape of structures of invisible 'Dark Matter', to which it has been drawn by gravitational attraction(Smoot and Davidson)

The Dogon's Internal System of Stars- The solar System

Griaule and Dieterlen write: "... in regard to the construction of the universe, the sacrifice of the Nommo determined the creation and the path of the stars, evidence of the blood, of the clavicular seeds and spiritual principles, and of the vital organs,when the body was divided up. Summing up this series of events, one says: "Amma was the in the Po, the seven grains came out of it in spirals. Because of the sacrifice of Nommo, the stars and seeds were strewn throughout space.

In the beginning the stars walked in the sky by following the sacrifice of the Nommo." P. Moore wrote that: Star streaming: In their passage around the Galaxy, stars move in parallel groups called star streams, whose paths cross so that the stars intermingle like marching bandsmen in military display."

Recent advances in astrophysics now show that the universe is actually a closed system, and that its expansion will eventually stop some billion years hence. Eastern philosophies say that the universe is like a respiratory, expanding on inspiration and contracting on expiration. The Dogon's probing of the universe has shown them a larger version of man there.

The Dogon recognized an inter system of stars, the solar system, which they say corresponds to the flow of blood on the placenta of the sacrificed Nommo.. They consider it to be the driving force of the stellar world, directly influencing the life of man and is development on earth; it plays a part much like the system of internal organs in the human body the "external" star system is descried as the "path of blood" outside the placenta and is made up of stars much further away, i.e., outside the solar system. This external system of stars also influences life on Earth though not as powerfully as those of the internal system.

This external "path of blood," according to the Dogon, includes the Milky Way, itself the image of the spiral of stars within the 'spiraling star world' in which earth is found.(Griaule and Dieterlen)
Orion and the Sirian Star System: Birth of Nursery of Stars
"There is Nothing New Under the Sun"

The Dogon call the Orion's Chariot, or known today as the Trapezium, as the "seat of Amma's foundation". They say: "In stellar space, the Chariot is the symbol of Amma's seat; it surrounds the Atanu, the Belt.... It is related to the basic elements and to the cardinal directions, which presided during the realization of the universe that was 'thought' by the Creator. This is interesting, considering that the Orion Nebula is considered the birthplace of stars, veritably a '"Cosmic Nursery".

Hubble's first images of visible image of the Carina Nebula. It is composed of gas and dust and the pictured pillar resides in the tempestuous stellar nursery in the Carina Nebula, located 7500 light-years in the southern constellation of Carina.
========================================

(See picture of Carina Nebula) that is bathed in the glow of light from hot, massive stars off the top of the image) What has been more astonishing than the Dogon's description of the properties of the star known as Sirius B, Po Tolo, to the Dogon, was not until the 17th century that Western astronomers realized that planetary orbits, orbits with of most heavenly bodies, tended to describe ellipses, as the Dogon represented that of Sirius B.

In the early 20th century, Carl Sagan purported the myth that some European affected the Dogon's presentation of the Sirius myth and repeated it verbatim to Griaule a generation later. Aside from the total absence of records - oral or written- this preposterous fiction and scenario ignores the inconvenient truth that the realization that Sirius B was a white dwarf did not occur until 1914.

Moreover, any of the properties of white dwarves that the Dogon describe did not become part of the general body of astronomic knowledge until after Griaule began his researches among them in 1931. Carl Sagan, the astronomer and many of his ilk, have consistently tried to fabricate the Dogon's galactic knowledge to demonstrate that they are not legit or is from some where else.

it is the Dogon who had 700 years of knowledge of this tradition that it is correct to say that the Dogon deserve credit for having discovered Sirius B and the white dwarf as a category of star. What is more, they have knowledge that Sirius B was incredibly dense and heavy of the non-neutron stars.

This is what the Dogon have to say concerning the metallic structure of Sirius B: "The Star [Sirius B] contains basic elements, "air", fire and water"; the element "earth" is replaced by metal in all its forms, particularly by the metal called sagala, somewhat more shiny than iron and of such density that 'all the beings on earth together could not lift a small part of it,' Hence the star's weight and,since it is so small, its density."(Griaule and Dieterlen)

How do the Dogon's know that white dwarves are composed mostly of an iron-like metallic substance which has only been documented in the last generation by spectrographic analysis. Also, we do not have anything that comes down to us from ancient Nile, Chaldea, China or the medieval Arabic world that remotely compares to the Dogon's caliber of astronomical knowledge. It is therefore unconscionable to call the Dogon a "tribal" and 'primitive" people when they are able to operate at a level of cosmic understanding comparable to "modern" Astrologists with their modern equipment.

If an obscure African people living their lives tucked away in a half-forgotten corner of Mali, can be ignored about their knowledge and culture and its connection to the universe, and due given to Einstein, the quantum theorists and modern astrophysicist ass having re-cleared a road for modern astronomy, which the Dogon's have been talking about for over 700 before, it seems like we are not learning anything new in this old beaten path by long expounded by the Dogon people.

Modern Astronomy and Dogon Views of Gravity and Super Nova

The Dogon seem also to have a concept that can be described as 'gravity': "The Movements of Po to keep all other stars on the respective places: in fact, they say that without this movement none of them would "stay in place." Po Tolo forces them to keep their trajectory: in particular, 'it regulates the trajectory of Sirius, which is the only one that does not follow a regular curve, and which it separates from the only one stars by surrounding it with its own orbit."(Griaule and Dieterlen). This is how modern scientific research bears this out: "The first white dwarf to be discovered was the companion of

The Dogons go as far as describing a third star in the Sirius system, called "Emme Ya" that, to date, has not been identified by astronomers
=======================================

According to the traditions of the Dogon, the star Sirius has a companion star which is invisible to the human eye. This companion star has a 50 year elliptical orbit around the visible Sirius and is extremely heavy. The Dogon say that it It rotates on its axis and this is the star which the scientists call Sirius B, and it wasn't even photographed until it was done by a large telescope in 1970. The Dogon knew about it at least 1000 years ago.

Sirius B, on the left and shining brightly, helps us to realize the perfection of light around us
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Sirius B has formed the basis of the holiest Dogon beliefs since antiquity. Western astronomers did not discover the star until the middle of the 19th century, and it wasn't even photographed until 1970 as observed above. In addition to their knowledge of Sirius B, the Dogon Mythology includes Saturn's rings and Jupiter's four major moons. They have four calendars, for the Sun, Moon, Sirius and Venus, and have long known that the planets orbit the Sun.

The Birth of Space-Time, Signs and Symbols
==================================

Typical of African thought, the Dogon concept of space-time, its origin, an its evolution, is apiece with their mytho-religious ideas. Central to this holistic precept is the role of signs, the fundamental constituents of symbols, and the Dogon say: "Just as Amma began the world by the sign, it is by destroying the signs that he will annihilate it.

(Griaule/Dieterlen) The Dogon called myths so tanie,

i .e., we find that the signs are the constituents of symbols and the symbols the tissue of myths. When the Creator wishes to destroy the world, he will first take away the myths by destroying the signs. According to the Dogon, Amma created and recreated the world twice over. He created the new Universe in this fashion:: "Starting from the primordial 'traces,' bummo, Amma first drew 'marks,' yala, of a new universe inside his 'womb' or 'egg.'

(Griaule/Dieterlen) Analogous language is used in modern scientific writing to describe the formation of the universe: "... imagine the Big Bang ... A kernel of the cosmos. ... researchers led by ... George Smoot ... had discovered primordial wrinkles, floating at the very beginning of time.... No more than wispy tendrils ... the ripples ... are no less that the handwriting of God."(Newsweek, 1992) George Smoot elaborated further in a book describing the monumental discoveries of his team: "The pattern of wrinkles I saw on the map was primordial. ... some of the structures represented by the wrinkles were so large that they could only have been generated at the firth of the universe....

I was staring at primordial wrinkles in time, the imprint of creation and the seeds of the modern universe." We have already seen that the Dogon conceive of the generation of everything in terms of germinating "seeds":

"The transformation of yala into tonu (representational diagrams) marks a stage in the formation of the heavenly bodies - visible and invisible - which are the twins of the seeds. It prefigures the spiraling worlds of stars that are to fill up the universe of Amma - infinite and yet measurable - when he will 'open himself up."(Griaule/Dieterlen)

The signs of creation and the myths woven about them by scientists is as similar in description that the the Dogon offer. The primal explosion of the Universe as described by modern science, bringing about into existence the formation of the galaxies, makes us observe that they use the same terminology: "Gravity draws matter to denser regions, which act like seeds for galaxies and cluster of galaxies." In the Dogon cosmic system, matter comes into existence spinning out of the "primal egg," after the Po burst."(Newsweek, 1992/1996)

It is important to note that the more we find mytho-religious terminology creeping into the theorizing of scientist, and this is done in such a way as to give coherence to concepts that emanate from the investigation into the deepest nature of things and of galaxies. At the outer limits of modern science, myth and matter are merging(Smoot and Davidson) This spinning motif seems to underlie the Dogon conception of how space-time comes into existence and evolves.

They say: "Amma's creative will was located in the Po, the smallest of things. Like a central air bubble, it spun and scattered the particles of matter in a sonorous and luminous motion, which, however, remained inaudible and invisible. It was less a word than thought. In the work of creation, the axis of the world emerges spinning: one sums up this work [of creation] by saying of the egg: 'It spun, opened; the remnant was the ... axis of the world."(Griaule/Dieterlen)

Wherever creative forces are at work, again and again, there is a creative spinning bringing forth the fibers of matter, and that is why the spider is a mytho-type that is consistantly appearing throughout West Africa. Hawking uses parallels the Dogon's idea of the spinning process of creation: "[After the big bang] the Universe as a whole would have continued expanding and cooling, but in regions that were slightly denser than average., the expansion would have slowed down by the extra gravitational attraction. This would eventually stop expansion in some regions, and cause them to start to collapse.

As they were collapsing, the gravitational pull of matter outside these regions might start them rotating slightly. As the collapsing region got smaller, it would spin faster. ... Eventually, when the region got small enough, it would be spinning fast enough to balance the attraction of gravity, and in this way, disk-like rotating galaxies were born."(Hawkings) Whirling and spinning forces produced wind, and this wind was crucial to the life of the stars as the Dogon state: "When Amma broke the egg of the world and came out, a whirlwind arose. The Po, which is the smallest thing, was made invisible at the center; the wind is Amma himself.

It is the Po which Amma let come out first. When life increases, it increases by whirling. Its been already stated that the Po represents the smallest of things, anything,; it is therefore the smallest of stars, i.e., those known as "white dwarfs" According to material provided by Griaule and Dieterlen, strictly speaking, white dwarfs are not the smallest of stars - neutron stars are. In a white dwarf, the mass of a sun is packed into a sphere the size of earth; in a neutron star, the mass of a sun is packed into a a sphere the size of a small city. Neutron stars thus possess incredible density and gravity.

They spin on their axis at high speeds. There is, however, a suggestion that the Dogon recognized the existence of a spinning body smaller than the Po Pilu("white dwarfs")

In this character, it's called the Po Pilu("white seed") which specifically refers to the first- and best-known of the white dwarfs, Sirius B, the companion to Sirius. We find this uncanny parallels in modern science: One modern scientist put it tis way: "As the degenerate[white] dwarf and it companions orbit each other, the dwarf's strong gravity pulls gas from the other star.

This swirling gas forms ... an accretion disc, which feeds onto the surface of the dwarf, wrapping it in an ever growing mantle. Our Sun, or any star of about the same mass, has a typical history. It begins as a cloud of gas and dust, or nebula. When enough matter falls to the center, the central mass ignites and becomes a star, which may go through a "jet phase." Stellar winds blow gas and dust away from the star and , in the case of our Sun, leave planets in the clear.(Gore)

This creative force of the whirlwind appears in the Dogon system when describing their resurrection mythology. The eight ancestors of all creation are called Nommo . The one called Nommo Anagonno , is repented as the Fish-Nommo, which will be sacrificed to counteract disorder in the Universe and renew creation. Concerning this sacrificed Nommo's relationship to the Po, the Dogon state: "By its spinning the unwound Po had poured everything it contained into the Nommo's 'great ark'.... This ark was made from the rest of the [sacrificed] victim's placenta.

According to the Dogon, this ark symbolizes the entire world in time and space and eventually, ti fill is creation, Amma causes the ark to descend, moving back and forth like a pendulum: "While the ark was swinging to and fro, the fact that it was suspended from a chain made it pivot on its axis, back and forth.

In this way, the line of its descent made a double helix, reproducing the very movement of life, of the whirlwind that quickened the first seed. This movement was maintained by the breath of the ancestors, as it passed through a nozzle. The nozzle is shaped like this whirling respiration, called "spinning wind," which gave force to the "helix of descent."(Griaule and Dieterlen)This sound like the spreading and speeding up of the galaxies away from each after the big burst, and this is what Hubble noted in his observation of the Universe.

The Dogon's African Intellectual History
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Where the history of African people is concerned, Africa must sit at the center of its study and interrogation. Though scholars would vehemently deny it, myth-making either or rises out of history. Examples of national myths that decisively impacted history of certain people include the "chosen" mantle of the ancient Hebrews, the "manifest destiny" of an expansive American nation, and the "thousand-year Reich" of German National Socialism.

If a people do not have a national myth, they create one because it is the myth that determines what they hope to be and what they strive for. Thus, myths are not "fiction", they are the symbolic essence of a people's quest for meaning and destiny. The myth, "So Tanie "['astonishing word'] which the Dogon consider to be "real" history ... constitutes here the whole of coherent themes of creation; t his is why, by virtue of their coherence and their order of succession, they make up a "history of the Universe,"- Aduno So Tanie.

Every sixty years the Dogon celebrate a ceremony called Sigui , corresponding to the renewal of the world during which Amma and his son, the nommo or the world's demiurge. The Dogon knew the szygies; thus, the world was created in seven twin years. They call Sirius, whose heliacal rising they knew, Sigui tolo = "The Star of Sigui," the feast of the world's rebirth marking the time when a new "sigui" priest had to be chosen for another sixty years.

A better perspective of the close-u view of Sirius A and B
===================================

What is more extraordinary is that for the Dogon, the Star Sirius s not the basis of the system. a miniscule star, called Po tolo or Digitaria .(Griaule/Dieterlen) , is the true center of the Dogon system. In modern astronomy, it is called 'the invisible companion of Sirius', which is also a double star. Po tolo, its companion, is a white dwarf star, which is invisible to the naked eye and its unsuspected presence explains the perturbations of the orbit of Sirius, the most brilliant star in the sky, qnd which is also the basis of the Egyptian sidereal calendar.

Although we might not assert that the Dogon or the ancient Egyptians had already acquired the same scientific comprehension of these phenomena as modern scientists. But it is certain that the Dogon have acquired a preise knowledge of the existence of this white dwarf star, invisible to the naked eye, and of it enormous density; they know its trajectory and that of Sirius: "Digitaria is the smallest of ll things. It is the heaviest star," say the Dogon.

The vivid language used by the Dogon must not lead us to devaluate their comprehension of the phenomenon, for it could not be otherwise. Other than its translatory movement on its orbit around Sirius, Po tolo or Digitaria makes a complete revolution round its axis in one year. mOst importantly, modern astronomy is not capable of invalidating or confirming this annual revolution of Po tolo, but it has confirmed another affirmation of the Dogon,namely, the period of fifty years taken by another star that revolves around Sirius. They also know Saturn's rings and the four biggest moons of Jupiter. (Adams)

The same idea is also expressed by the Woyo people of Equatorial Africa, according to former Zairian Ambassador M. Nguvulu-Lubundi. The theory of the four elements is known. (Griaule/Dieterlen) According to Griaule and Dieterlen: "Digitaria's orbit is situated at the center of the world; Digitaria i the axis of the whole world, and without it movement no heavenly body could maintain itself. This is to say that Digitaria is the regulator of the celestial positions; notable, it regulates that of Sirius, the most uncoordinated star; it separates from the other bodies surrounding its trajectory."

The position of the sirius B is our 'tether' to the outer- reaches of of the galaxy
==============================

Certain schools of quantum theories are experimenting with "super-position of state" and these experimenters have been able to develop a device called SQUID(Superconducting Quantum Interference Device) that detect electrons moving in more that one state; that is to say, , existing in two different forms simultaneously. This has led some theories to leave an impression that modern physics has moved closer than ever to science fiction. One of these theories posits that "multi universes"
existing in a "superposed" state relative to one other, that at quantum, particles such as electrons can and do move through more than one universe.

(Hogan) These separate universes are self-contained but not entirely impermeable to one another. There are way-put theorists who attribute all manner of phenomena, ranging from schizophrenia to paranormal phenomena, to the existence of these "superposed" universes. Now, compare these ideas to the Dogon's explanation of Amma's work: "The number 14, attributed to the spiral worlds produced by Amma, implies the concept of potential reproduction and multiplication: seven is the sum of three, the masculine number, and four, the feminine number. Here it designates the seven Earths and seven Heavens.

Amma created 7x2, that is to say, an infinity in words. The superposition of worlds and the concept of the infinite multiplication of stellar universes are indicated by the fact that the number 28 is attributed to Amma as well; it is called "Amma's number," because one also says: "Amma fourteen above, fourteen below, etc..."

The spiral worlds of stars were populated universes; because simultaneously with things, Amma, having given form an movement to the world, created all living things. As the Dogon say, 'all creation comes out of the Amma egg which is the Po. Also, quantum physics postulated multiple universes point out to the Big Bang, so too are the multiple universes that emerge out of the bursting Po superposed. What is of most striking importance here is the Dogon's insistence that there is intelligent life elsewhere in our universe and in other universes. Physicist Fred Alan Wolf articulates this point thus: "What is a parallel universe?

Like an everyday universe, it is a region of space and time containing matter, galaxies, stars, planets and living beings. In other words, a parallel universe is similar and possibly even a duplicate of our own universe. Not only in a parallel universe must there be other human beings, but these may be human beings who are exact duplicate of ourselves and who are connected to ourselves through mechanisms explainable only by using quantum physics concepts."

Dogon Cosmogony

Dogon Sand drawing of the complete Sirius system, A. Sirius, B. Po Tolo. [the object equated with Siriu B is shown in two positions]; C. Emme Ya, the sun of women, equated with Sirius C; D. The Nommo; E. the Yourougou, a mythical male figure destined
=================================

Anansi the Cosmic Weaver and the Web of Creation

The Dogon from Northern Mali are called HABRE(unbelievers) by the Fulani, because they resisted Islam, and following their migration under pressure form the MOSSI Kingdom, they sought shelter among the rocky country at the foot of Andiagara and Hombori mountains where they wrested fields from the arid ground with the aid of artificial irrigation.

Dogon social and religious organizations are closely interlinked and out of this arose principal religions, which accounts for the richness and diversity of Dogon culture and art. The Hogon is the religious leader of a region, in charge of the religion of Lebe, the 'mythical' serpent. Assisted by the blacksmith, he presides over agrarian ceremonies.

The clans are subdivided into lineages,overseen by the patriarch, guardian of the clan's ancestral shrine and officiant at the totemic animal religion. Beside this hierarchical system of consanguinity, male and female associations are entrusted with the initiations that take place by age group, corresponding to groups of newly circumcised or excised boys or girls. circumcision thus creates wholly male or female person prepared to assume an adult role.

The members of an age group owe one another assistance until the day the die. Initiation of boys begins after their circumcision, with the teaching of the myths annotated by drawings and paintings. The young boys will learn the place of humans in nature, society and the universe. Because of the difficult approach to these regions and the aridity of the climate, the Dogon have been isolated and hence were able to conserve their ancient religious habits and ways of making their implements necessary for their carvings.

The spider holds an important place in their mythologies, and among the Akan, for example, there exist a whole constellation of tales around Anansi, the Spider. The spider plays a special role in the Dogon cosmogenesis as well, because Anansi the Spider is a trickster, and among the Dogon, Dada the Spider is allied is allied to the Prince of Tricksters," the source of all Chaos and Disorder.

According to the Dogon, Dada, spins the Fox's thread to assist him in his rebellion against Amma's creation. This rebellion and creation of chaos, is in reality, entropy, the force that pushes the universe ever outward.

The Four Calendars of the Dogon People
===========================

The Dogon have four calenders and their main calendar is a lunar one, and they also maintain a solar calendar. Their lunar year is 354 days and their solar year is 365 days. There is also a soli-lunar year of 360, and the twelve others grouped into twos, each containing 60 days. Their solar calendar begins in the Winter Solstice like ours, and they observe the Solstices and equinoxes the whole year round.

This whole system seems to be surviving amongst the Dogon, that as they have described to us, the erecting of the altar of the resurrected Nommo , who sacrificed to renew the world, is correlated with what the Dogon call "the meeting of Sirius and the Sun, viz., the heliacal rising of Sirius.

They enlighten us further and state: Sirius is the symbol of the ever-living placenta of the resurrected Nommo: the star is also called Alabararu which is a contraction of "Amma Albarka (or thanks to Amma.... On the spatial level, the figure of Nommo's placenta(Sirius) denotes the collateral directions of "four angles" of celestial space(See last picture of Sirius in the photo gallery)

There are three main calenders we are now aware of, of the Dogon, i.e., and they are the lunar calendar, the solar and the Sirian. The fourth cycle in unusual because it is based on the sic positions of Venus. Their agricultural cycle is tied to the positions of Venus whenever it appears; i.e., the path of the planet through space and at specific times during the year. These positions are explained as follows:
Enegirim: Venus as the "star of the goatherds," referring to the time of sowing and germination.

Sirius: the figure of Nommo's placenta, which denotes the cardinal directions if Terrestial Space, as explained by the Dogon.
===================================

Dige Tanu: Venus as the star of midnight," referring to the time of the millet emerging from the earth.
Dono Tolo: Venus as the "star of the west" or Evening Star and refers to the time of the millet that has grown into an ear.
Yazu: The position of Venus just after midnight and refers to the time of the grains formed in the ear)Pregnant millet).Obia: This word means "hidden," referring to Venus as the Morning Star, and is the time of the "ripe millet." Yapunu da:

The position of Venus in the heavens literally translates as "dish of the menstruating women," that is referring to the time when the millet is eaten(symbolically 'dead') and in the end presenting the clavicle of the people it has nourished.

In the end, as a reality and testament of their being supremely sophisticated in their presentation of their knowledge, through their culture, architecture and universal galactic knowledge, it is clearly important to note their knowledge of entropy of the universe. And when it comes to To Polo(Sirius B), the Dogon's said: "The Star's former position in space is where the sun is where now the sun is, called "seat of Po Tolo," po tolo doy. Like the other stars, it moved away and is presently at the center of the sky: but it is a center in motion.

The Dogon have been saying what Hubble saw in 1922 that on the spectographic analysis, all the remotest galaxies in the universe were moving away from him: everything was moving away from his position, and everything was moving away from everything else; the remoter the galaxy, the faster.

The Preservation of Harlem's African Burial Ground

2011-03-05T07:48:00.000-08:00

In my research, I am finding there are many African burial sites that are not being preserved.

We need to memorialized them , commemorate and preserved them properly.

Sankofa*
========

The Harlem African Burial Ground is underneath this city bus depot.
Florescu for News Christine Campbell, actress/activist checks documents related to the burial ground. There's a hidden piece of African history in East Harlem, and a group of local leaders are doing all they can to preserve it.

For more than a year, residents and church officials have battled to preserve and memorialize the centuries-old Harlem African Burial Ground, now under a city bus depot at 126th St. and Second Ave.

Government agencies haven't always been cooperative - insisting that a part of the cemetery does not exist, advocates charged.

"The Harlem community is watching and very concerned about what's going on," said the Rev. Patricia Singletary, leader of the Harlem African Burial Ground Task Force. "We just want the ... burial ground to be memorialized, properly commemorated and preserved."

"There was a strong feeling of disrespect and disregard of our concerns," said Singletary, pastor of Elmendorf Reformed Church on E. 121st St., which owns the burial ground. "We are not being filled in [by the DOT]."

But DOT officials said the agency has been cooperative.

The 1660s cemetery, once called the Harlem Colored Burying Ground, was used by the Dutch to bury the enslaved and freed of African descent. Parishioners from at least six Harlem churches are buried there.

===============================

At St. Mary's Episcopal Church on W. 126th St., the Rev. Earl Kooperkamp has kept a well-worn, 150-year-old brown ledger with the names of those buried at the site carefully written in flowery script.

They include Herman Cannon, 69; Mary Stewart, 20; Benjamin Pearsall Benedict, 1; Israel Williams, 5, and numerous members of the large Hagerman family, the records show.

Kooperkamp believes such an important site should stand preserved, with the bus depot demolished.

"These were the founders, the ancestors of this parish," he said. "I want to see it as a memorial to these ancestors. It doesn't need to be a bus depot. We could lose one."

There has also been controversy over whether the burial ground stretches into an area where the city Department of Transportation is building a ramp leading to the Willis Ave. Bridge, with the DOT insisting it doesn't.

"The area has been excavated numerous times over the centuries for development ... making it unlikely that additional work in this area would turn up any issues," a DOT spokeswoman told the Daily News.

But leaders from the community don't agree, and have kept a close watch over the property.

"We established the monitoring zone and then voluntarily expanded it in response to community concerns," a spokesman said, adding an archaeologist is called to the site when work is done in that area "in the unlikely event that excavation revealed any artifacts. None have been found."

Still, passions run high about the site, and advocates like Christine Campbell, a task force and St. Mary's member, is ready to do whatever it takes to preserve it.

"We don't want to lay down in front of a bulldozer," she said. "But if we have to, we will."

REF: The Daily News

Charlotta A. Bass Newspaper Publisher-Editor, Civil Rights Activist

2011-02-19T08:52:00.000-08:00

(1874-1969)

Bass was born in Sumter, South Carolina on February 14, 1874. She relocated to California in 1910 for health reasons. Charlotta Bass took over control of The California Eagle, upon the death of the paper's founder, John James Neimore, in 1912 and served as its publisher until 1951.

She and her husband Joseph Bass, who had served as editor of the Topeka Plain Dealer and the Montana Plain Dealer used The Eagle to push for reforms. They combatted such issues as the derogatory images rampant in D.W. Griffith's film, Birth of A Nation; Los Angeles' discriminatory hiring practices; the Klu Klux Klan; police brutality; and restrictive housing covenants.

Bass' uncompromising stance against racial injustice resulted in her life being threatened on numerous occasions. She was branded a communist, and the FBI placed her under surveillance on the charge that her paper was seditious. However, this never deterred her or her paper from seeking civil and political rights for African Americans and the disadvantaged.

Charlotta Bass and Paul Robeson, Los Angeles, 1949

Bass retired from the newspaper business in 1951. Her later years were devoted to politics. In 1952 she became the first African-American woman to run for national office as the Vice Presidential candidate on the Progressive Party ticket.

She died of a cerebral hemorrhage on April 12,1969.

FURTHER READINGS

Bass, Charlotta. Forty Years: Memoirs from the Pages of A Newspaper: 1960. (Unpublished Manuscript Available at Southern California Research Library and Schomburg)

Jeter, James Phillip, Ph.D. Rough Flying: The California Eagle - (1879-1965) (AJHA Convention Paper)

FREEDOM JOURNAL - PIONEER BLACK NEWSPAPERS

2011-02-19T08:19:00.000-08:00

Activist Newspapers
=================

The first Black newspaper in the U.S. Freedom's Journal, laid the foundation for a long and distinguished line of pionerring Black newspapers.

THE FREEDOM JOURNAL:

These newspapers were dedicated to the same ideas the Freedom Journal championed. Educating and Informing the Black communities, supporting their goals of equality and justice, and making their achievements visible to the world.

Here's a look at several of them:
================================

THE NEW ORLEANS TRIBUNE:
=======================

The New Orleans Tribune was the first Black daily newspaper. It was the offshot of L 'Union (THE UNION), was the first Black newspaper published in both French and English. It began in 1862, during the Civil War, and ceased publication in 1864. Dr. Louis Roudanez was a healthy Black doctor and vice president of New Orleans Freedom's Aid Association. He bought L' Union printing equipment and started The Tribune.

The newspaper fought for equal treatment for Black and White soldiers, Black children acceptance into the common schools and the vote for Black people.

==================================

THE CALIFORNIA EAGLE:
===================

John James Neimore established The California Eagle Owl in Los Angeles in 1870 to help African Americans who were moving into the west. Charlotta Spears Bass assumed control over the Owl after Neimore died in 1912, renaming it The California Eagle.

PAUL ROBESON BREAKING THROUGH THE CALIFORNIA EAGLE
===================

The Eagle fought racial discrimination and segrgation in Los Angeles and California. It published editorials opposing D.W. Griffith film, "Birth of a Nation", whiched featured derogatory portrayals of Black people.

==========

In 1951, Bass sold the newspaper to Loren Miller, a former Eagle reporter.

In 1952, Bass became the first Black woman to run for national office as a Progressive Party Presidential candidate.
===============================

The Eagle ceased publication in 1964.
====

THE AFRO-AMERICAN
===============

The Afro-American in Baltimore was founded by John Henry Murphy Sr. in 1892. He merged his church publication,The Sunday School Helper, with two other churches publications. The Ledger and the Afro-American.

The newspaper crusaded for racial equality in Maryland. It pushed Baltimore police department to hire black police officers, it fought to obtain equal pay for Maryland's Black school teachers and was instrumental in helping Black students get into schools, like the University of Maryland school and Maryland Art Institute.
===================

It's "Clean Block" campaign aimed to reduce crime and improve the appearance of inner-city neighborhoods.

=====

THE CHICAGO DEFENDER:
==================

The Chicago Defender was founded in 1905 by Robert Sengstacke Abbott.

Who also became one of the self-made Black millionaires in America.
=====================================

CHICAGO DEFENDER

The Defender encouraged Black migration from the South. It also mimicked the sensationalist "yellow journalist" techiniques of publishers William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Publitzer attract readers and boost sales.

The Defender did not use the word "Black or Negro", it referred to Black people as "THE RACE".
==================

THE PITTSBURGH COURIER:
=====================

Edwin Haeleston established The Pittsburgh Courier in 1907. Attorney Robert Lee Vann started out as the newspaper's legal counsel and eventuslly became editor-publisher.

The Courier fought for improvements in housing and education for African Americans. It sought more Black physicians in the Pittsburg area and pushed for a hospital that would treat Black people.
=======================

Vann influenced Black voters to shift their political alleigance away from Republican Party to the Democratic Party.

Four boys infront of the Pittsburg Courier.
=======

The Pittsburgh Courier was an American newspaper published in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, which was published from 1907 to 1965. Once the country's most widely circulated Black newspaper, the legacy and influence of the Pittsburgh Courier is unparalleled.

A pillar of the Black Press, it rose alongside the civil rights movement and was among its most forceful voices.

At its peak, the paper boasted a national circulation of almost 250,000 with over 400 employees in 14 cities. Widely read, the Pittsburgh Courier set the tone on major issues impacting the African-American community and people paid attention.

In the 1930s, the Courier urged Black voters to "turn Lincoln's picture to the wall" and vote Democrat, creating a political alliance that endures to this day.

Some famous contributors to the Courier were Joel Augustus Rogers, who worked as a journalist for the Courier in the 1920s, and Sam Milai, editorial cartoonist for the Courier for 33 years.

In 1965, the Courier went into bankruptcy and ceased publishing.

Marcus Garvey, W.E.B.Dubios, James Weldon Johnson, Elijah Muhammad and Zora Neale Hurston wrote for the Courier.

Weldon Smith, The Courier sports writer, used his column to denounce segregation in baseball major leagues. His efforts contributed to Jackie Robinson's signing with the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947.

================

Sankofa..................

This history is unlocked.....this is a time that people from African descent felt the need to make change and spoke out utilizing as many venues as possible.

The newspapers of today, that are in representation of the Black community need a snapshot of our history in journalism, to better serve the community and print stories that will better inform, educate, encourage as well as support our goals of equality.

HOTEP!

A CONGO ORIGINAL: PATRICE LUMUMBA

2011-02-13T07:05:00.000-08:00

Patrice Emery Lumumba

Historical Biography *

Patrice Emery Lumumba
July 2, 1925, Onalua, Belgian Congo [now Congo (Kinshasa)]
January 1961, Katanga province
===========================

African nationalist leader, the first prime minister of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (June-September 1960). Forced out of office during a political crisis, he was assassinated a short time later.

Lumumba was born in the village of Onalua in Kasai province, Belgian Congo. He was a member of the small Batetela tribe, a fact that was to become significant in his later political life. His two principal rivals, Moise Tshombe, who led the breakaway of the Katanga province, and Joseph Kasavubu, who later became the nation's president, both came from large, powerful tribes from which they derived their major support, giving their political movements a regional character. In contrast, Lumumba's movement emphasized its all-Congolese nature.

After attending a Protestant mission school, Lumumba went to work in Kindu-Port-Empain, where he became active in the club of the évolués (educated Africans). He began to write essays and poems for Congolese journals. Lumumba next moved to Léopoldville (now Kinshasa) to become a postal clerk and went on to become an accountant in the post office in Stanleyville (now Kisangani). There he continued to contribute to the Congolese press.

In 1955 Lumumba became regional president of a purely Congolese trade union of government employees that was not affiliated, as were other unions, to either of the two Belgian trade-union federations (socialist and Roman Catholic). He also became active in the Belgian Liberal Party in the Congo. Although conservative in many ways, the party was not linked to either of the trade-union federations, which were hostile to it. In 1956 Lumumba was invited with others to make a study tour of Belgium under the auspices of the Minister of Colonies. On his return he was arrested on a charge of embezzlement from the post office. He was convicted and condemned one year later, after various reductions of sentence, to 12 months' imprisonment and a fine.

When Lumumba got out of prison, he grew even more active in politics. In October 1958 he founded the Congolese National Movement (Mouvement National Congolais; MNC), the first nationwide Congolese political party. In December he attended the first All-African People's Conference in Accra, Ghana, where he met nationalists from across the African continent and was made a member of the permanent organization set up by the conference. His outlook and terminology, inspired by pan-African goals, now took on the tenor of militant nationalism.

In 1959 the Belgian government announced a program intended to lead in five years to independence, starting with local elections in December 1959. The nationalists regarded this program as a scheme to install puppets before independence and announced a boycott of the elections. The Belgian authorities responded with repression. On October 30 there was a clash in Stanleyville that resulted in 30 deaths. Lumumba was imprisoned on a charge of inciting to riot.

The MNC decided to shift tactics, entered the elections, and won a sweeping victory in Stanleyville (90 percent of the votes). In January 1960 the Belgian government convened a Round Table Conference in Brussels of all Congolese parties to discuss political change, but the MNC refused to participate without Lumumba. Lumumba was thereupon released from prison and flown to Brussels. The conference agreed on a date for independence, June 30, with national elections in May. Although there was a multiplicity of parties, the MNC came out far ahead in the elections, and Lumumba emerged as the leading nationalist politician of the Congo. Maneuvers to prevent his assumption of authority failed, and he was asked to form the first government, which he succeeded in doing on June 23, 1960.

A few days after independence, some units of the army rebelled, largely because of objections to their Belgian commander. In the confusion, the mineral-rich province of Katanga proclaimed secession. Belgium sent in troops, ostensibly to protect Belgian nationals in the disorder. But the Belgian troops landed principally in Katanga, where they sustained the secessionist regime of Moise Tshombe.

The Congo appealed to the United Nations to expel the Belgians and help them restore internal order. As prime minister, Lumumba did what little he could to redress the situation. His army was an uncertain instrument of power, his civilian administration untrained and untried; the United Nations forces (whose presence he had requested) were condescending and assertive, and the political alliances underlying his regime very shaky. The Belgian troops did not evacuate, and the Katanga secession continued.

Since the United Nations forces refused to help suppress the Katangese revolt, Lumumba appealed to the Soviet Union for planes to assist in transporting his troops to Katanga. He asked the independent African states to meet in Léopoldville in August to unite their efforts behind him. His moves alarmed many, particularly the Western powers and the supporters of President Kasavubu, who pursued a moderate course in the coalition government and favoured some local autonomy in the provinces.

On September 5 President Kasavubu dismissed Lumumba. The legalities of the move were immediately contested by Lumumba. There were thus two groups now claiming to be the legal central government. On September 14 power was seized by the Congolese army leader Colonel Joseph Mobutu (president of Zaire as Mobutu Sese Seko), who later reached a working agreement with Kasavubu. In October the General Assembly of the United Nations recognized the credentials of Kasavubu's government. The independent African states split sharply over the issue.

In November Lumumba sought to travel from Leopoldville, where the United Nations had provided him with provisory protection, to Stanleyville, where his supporters had control. With the active complicity of foreign intelligence sources, Joseph Mobutu sent his soldiers after Lumumba. He was caught after several days of pursuit and spent three months in prison, while his adversaries were trying in vain to consolidate their power. Finally, aware that an imprisoned Lumumba was more dangerous than a dead Prime Minister, he was delivered on January 17, 1961, to the Katanga secessionist regime, where he was executed the same night of his arrival, along with his comrades Mpolo and Okito. His death caused a national scandal throughout the world, and, retrospectively, Mobutu proclaimed him a "national hero."

The reasons that Lumumba provoked such intense emotion are not immediately evident. His viewpoint was not exceptional. He was for a unitary Congo and against division of the country along tribal or regional lines. Like many other African leaders, he supported pan-Africanism and the liberation of colonial territories. He proclaimed his regime one of "positive neutralism," which he defined as a return to African values and rejection of any imported ideology, including that of the Soviet Union.

Lumumba was, however, a man of strong character who intended to pursue his policies, regardless of the enemies he made within his country or abroad. The Congo, furthermore, was a key area in terms of the geopolitics of Africa, and because of its wealth, its size, and its contiguity to white-dominated southern Africa, Lumumba's opponents had reason to fear the consequences of a radical or radicalized Congo regime. Moreover, in the context of the Cold War, the Soviet Union's support for Lumumba appeared at the time as a threat to many in the West.

These popular depictions of Patrice Lumumba exemplify the Congolese tradition of venerating mythic or cultural heroes.

Just as classical African sculptures portrayed cultural innovators, urban art helped transform Lumumba into a powerful symbol. Made to be within the buying power of the urban middle classes, these paintings could be reproduced, hung in homes, and have major political effect in a country where many people did not read or have access to mass media.

Through these paintings, the viewer gains insight into the popular issues of the era and understands how visual arts can shape national consciousness.

Congolese urban art, or popular painting, is a primary medium of urban cultural memory in the Congo. The popular paintings in A Congo Chronicle trace Lumumba’s story from his winning the national elections during the period preceding the Congo’s accession to independence, his daring independence tirade, and his subsequent removal from power and execution.
A Congo Chronicle: Patrice Lumumba in Urban Art is organized by the Museum for African Art, New York.

A 110-page full-color catalogue by guest curator Bogumil Jewsiewicki of Laval University, Quebec, with essays by contributing scholars Jean Omasombo Tshonda, Nyunda ya Rubango, Dibwe dia Mwembu, and Mary Nooter Roberts and Allen F. Roberts accompanies the exhibition.

Grass Roots: African Origins of an American Art

2011-02-13T06:48:00.001-08:00

Through the prism of America's most enduring African-inspired art form, the Lowcountry basket, Grass Roots guides readers across 300 years of American and African history.

In scholarly essays and beautiful photographs, Grass Roots follows the coiled basket along its transformation on two continents from a simple farm tool once used for processing grain to a work of art and a central symbol of African and African American identity.

Featuring images of the stunning work of contemporary basket makers from South Carolina to South Africa, as well as historic photographs that document the artistic heritage of the southern United States, Grass Roots appears at a moment when public recognition of the Gullah/Geechee heritage is encouraging a reexamination of Africa's contribution to American civilization.

Working with basket makers from Charleston and Mt. Pleasant, South Carolina, historian Dale Rosengarten has been studying African American baskets for over 20 years and brings her research up-to-date with interviews of artists and the results of recent historical inquiry.

Anthropologist Enid Schildkrout draws on her research in West Africa and museum collections around the world to explore the African antecedents of Lowcountry basketry.

Geographer Judith A. Carney discusses the origins of rice in Africa and reveals how enslaved African brought to America not only rice seeds but, just as important, the technical know-how that turned southern coastal forests and swamps into incredibly profitable rice plantations.

Historian Peter H. Wood discusses the many skills that enslaved Africans contributed to the settlement of the Old South and at the same time used to resist the conditions of their servitude.

John Michael Vlach, a leading authority on African American folk art, discusses the history of visual depictions of plantation life.

Fath Davis Ruffins, a specialist on the imagery of popular culture, sheds light on the history embedded in old photographs of African Americans in the Charleston area. Cultural historian Jessica B. Harris explores the tradition of rice in American cooking and the enduring African influences in the southern kitchen.

Anthropologist and art historian Sandra Klopper sketches the history of coiled basketry in South Africa, illuminating its evolution from utilitarian craft to fine art, parallel to developments in America.

Anthropologist J. Lorand Matory traces the changing meanings of Gullah/Geechee identity and discusses its appearance as a significant force on the American cultural scene today.

Exhibition Catalogue by Dale Rosengarten, Theodore Rosengarten, and Enid Schildkrout. Dale Rosengarten is curator of special collections at the College of Charleston library.

Theodore Rosengarten teaches history at the College of Charleston and University of South Carolina. Enid Schildkrout is chief curator and director of exhibitions and publications at the Museum for African Art, New York.

Published by the Museum for African Art, New York, 2008. 270 pp.

Family Craft Friday: Adinkra Stamps

2011-02-13T06:05:00.000-08:00

UP COMING EVENTS AT the Museum OF African Art in NYC

Family Craft Friday: Adinkra Stamps

Location: Charles A. Dana Discovery Center inside Central Park on 110th St between Fifth and Lenox Aves

Museum for African Art educators will guide participants in using Adinkra symbols from Ghana to create their own printed cloth.

The Ashante people in Ghana use these visual symbols to express concepts and meanings on clothing and other textiles, walls, pottery, and woodcarvings.

This event is the second of three special Family Fridays co-presented by The Central Park Conservancy that features art making activities inspired by nature and African art.

Join us on Friday, March 18 from 2:00-4:00 pm for the last program.

FREE. No advance registration. All ages welcome. Space is limited, no afterschool groups please. For more information, call 212-860-1370.

Museum for African Art education programs are supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, and the May and Samuel Rudin Family Foundation, Inc.

Black Women in White Johannesburg

2011-02-13T05:40:00.000-08:00

Black Women in White Johannesburg: Domestic Workers' Spatial Strategies under Apartheid.

=============================================

In mid-twentieth-century South Africa, thousands of black women left rural areas to find work in the households of suburban white families. Many headed to Johannesburg, South AfricaÂ's largest city and industrial powerhouse, which was a racially and ethnically divided space.

Professor Rebecca Ginsburg, Assistant Professor of Landscape Architecture and Director of the Educational Justice Project at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, will share the ways in which domestic workers responded to and overcame the severe restrictions on mobility imposed upon them by Apartheid-era legislation.

Dr. Ginsburg, who lived for several years in South Africa, teaches courses on historic African cities and the Atlantic slave trade, among other subjects.

Her current research interests include fugitive landscapes and geographies of the Atlantic slave trade. Dr. Ginsburg's previous publications include The Landscapes of North American Slavery; Historical Geography, and Landscape Journals, among other titles.

This program is a part of a series entitled Sightlines: New Perspectives on African Architecture and Urbanism.

In this series the Museum for African Art and Columbia’s Institute for African Studies have partnered to explore the social, physical and emotional contours of Africa’s many cities and changing urban environments.

The featured speakers will share about their perspectives on architecture, urban planning and architectural theory as it relates to both African contexts and larger global relevance.

Museum for African Art education programs are supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, and the May and Samuel Rudin Family Foundation, Inc.

Columbia University, International Affairs Building Room 1512, 420 West 118th Street

MARTIN L. KING A PEACEFUL WARRIOR

2011-01-16T08:57:00.000-08:00

A dreamer , freedom fighter, yet a peaceful warrior.
Philosopher, preacher, , envisionist, motivator.

The voice of one man can change the course of his generation...
and leave a legacy. King the peaceful warrior.

He shared a dream that affected us all
In the face of adversity he by example stood so brave and tall.

KING envisioned the sweltering heat of injustice and oppression would be transformed into a Oasis of Freedom.

He had the faith in this nation rising and living up to its creed.
Holding this truth to be self evident that all men are created equal!

In the spirit of rememberence to a great man that passed our way and touch so many hearts and souls!

MLK FAMOUS QUOTES:
==================

All men are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality.
Martin Luther King Jr.

Faith is taking the first step, even when you don't see the whole staircase.
Martin Luther King Jr.

Hatred paralyzes life; love releases it. Hatred confuses life; love harmonizes it. Hatred darkens life; love illuminates it.
Martin Luther King Jr.

Human salvation lies in the hands of the creatively maladjusted.
Martin Luther King Jr.

I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. That is why right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant.
Martin Luther King Jr.

I submit that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for the law.
Martin Luther King Jr.

In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.
Martin Luther King Jr.

It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me, but it can stop him from lynching me, and I think that's pretty important.
Martin Luther King Jr.

Let no man pull you low enough to hate him.
Martin Luther King Jr.

Like an unchecked cancer, hate corrodes the personality and eats away its vital unity. Hate destroys a man's sense of values and his objectivity. It causes him to describe the beautiful as ugly and the ugly as beautiful, and to confuse the true with the false and the false with the true.
Martin Luther King Jr.

Man must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love.
Martin Luther King Jr.

Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.
Martin Luther King Jr.

Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars... Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.
Martin Luther King Jr.

Segregation is the adultery of an illicit intercourse between injustice and immorality.
Martin Luther King Jr.

Ten thousand fools proclaim themselves into obscurity, while one wise man forgets himself into immortality.
Martin Luther King Jr.

We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools.
Martin Luther King Jr.

When you are right you cannot be too radical; when you are wrong, you cannot be too conservative.
Martin Luther King Jr.

The hope of a secure and livable world lies with disciplined nonconformists who are dedicated to justice, peace and brotherhood.
Martin Luther King Jr., "Strength to Love"

All progress is precarious, and the solution of one problem brings us face to face with another problem.

Martin Luther King Jr., 'Strength to Love,' 1963

The good neighbor looks beyond the external accidents and discerns those inner qualities that make all men human and, therefore, brothers.
Martin Luther King Jr., 'Strength to Love,' 1963

Nonviolence is the answer to the crucial political and moral questions of our time; the need for mankind to overcome oppression and violence without resorting to oppression and violence.

Mankind must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression, and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love.

Martin Luther King Jr., December 11, 1964

Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.
Martin Luther King Jr., Letter from Birmingham Jail, April 16, 1963

The church was not merely a thermometer that recorded the ideas and principles of popular opinion; it was a thermostat that transformed the mores of society.

Martin Luther King Jr., Letter from Birmingham Jail, April 1963

Now, I say to you today my friends, even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream.

It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream. I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed:

- 'We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.'

Martin Luther King Jr., Speech at Civil Rights March on Washington, August 28, 1963

=================

I submit to you that if a man hasn't discovered something he will die for, he isn't fit to live.

Martin Luther King Jr., Speech in Detroit, June 23, 1963

...And I've looked over, and I've seen the promised land. I may not get there with you, but I want you to know tonight that we as a people will get to the promised land. So I'm happy tonight. I'm not worried about anything. I'm not fearing any man.
Martin Luther King Jr., Speech in Memphis, April 3, 1968, the day before King was assassinated

Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.
Martin Luther King Jr., Strength to Love, 1963

Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power.
We have guided missiles and misguided men.
Martin Luther King Jr., Strength to Love, 1963

The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.

Martin Luther King Jr., Strength to Love, 1963

hotep*

Tea Party Wants Slavery Removed From Student Textbooks

2011-01-16T08:08:00.000-08:00

Whitewashing of Black History in Text Books - Update

===============

More of the truth is feared of being ripped out of society and replaced with untruth or not mentioned at all.

IT'S bad enough that (slavery) is pretty much all that is taught in the history books to start with.

There is so much more that needs to be revealed to the African community at large. This very country was built and founded on African principles, philosophy, religion and science.

The secret is out! mathematics, Astronomy to say the least.

Why not erase any and all mention of slavery and genocide from United States textbooks all together?

Textbooks scrubbed free of slaves' blood and government-sanctioned murder, ensuring that history books are palatable for generations of bright-eyed school children for generations to come.

After a news conference on Wednesday, about two dozen members of the Tea Party of Tennessee presented lawmakers with a list of "priorities and "demands" for the 2011 legislative session.

According to the Party, it would "besmirch the image of the Founding Fathers" to be honest about this nation's history.

In material distributed to the legislators, they demanded that state laws governing textbook criteria ensure that "no portrayal of minority experience in the history which actually occurred shall obscure the experience or contributions of the Founding Fathers, or the majority of citizens, including those who reached positions of leadership."

Party spokesman and Fayette County attorney Hal Rounds said the group wants to address "an awful lot of made-up criticism" about, for instance, the founders intruding on the Indians or having slaves or being hypocrites in one way or another.

As it stands, African Americans rarely get mentioned in any historical context at all if not that of the slave or loyal sidekick. Only the most passive of us managed to escape unscathed into the history books and now this bastion of bigotry from "the Volunteer State" wants to exclude even that so we don't "besmirch" our founding fathers' legacy?

=====================

Our children need to know their history. They deserve to understand what we've overcome, so that they know what they can become.

=====================

They are attempting to hypnotize our children into a mindless state of group think in hopes of erasing what continuously exists, even if in different forms.

If they can re-create history in a way that minimizes slavery, then it will be easier for all the subsequent inequalities to be deemed an exaggeration.

Americans will perceive the judicial, educational, occupational and health care disparities facing minorities not as remnants of slavery and Jim Crow, but a testament to the laziness and apathy of African Americans.

If that shift occurs, it will be easier to implement their radical call for the repeal of the 17th Amendment, bringing this country back to square one as it pertains to race relations.

So to the Tea Party of Tennessee: Maybe you all should strive to genuinely erase prejudice and injustice in this country instead of perpetuating division, violence and historical myths.

Then maybe your legacy won't need to be whitewashed to absolve your descendants of guilt as you're pathetically trying to do now.

Our history is important to us and the world needs to know the truth about slavery and before slavery occurred!

hotep!

THE 4 NUBIAN PRINCIPLES AND DESCENDANTS OF NUBIA

2010-10-10T07:24:00.000-07:00

According to a conversation, Professor Brown who teaches anatomy at Medgar Evers College in NYC; She states that ancient Nubian's, as other African cultures, operated through an uplifting and positive law.

========
The 4 (four) Nubian Principles
========

1- PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY

2 - LAW OF FREEDOM

3- LAW OF OWNERSHIP

4- NOTHING CAN CHANGE, WHO TIME HAS COME,
IT'S OUR TIME!
=================

The History of Nubian civilization extends back to about 17,000 years (See Van Sertima: Egypt Revisited)

This history included a strong connection with a great Black Civilization that existed in the Sahara and consisted of a number of Black Nations, including some of the ancestors of people who live in the South Pacific/Melasia, who had been sailing to Asia earlier than 100,000 years B.C.

The Nubians created the world's first civilization and that civilization was much older than Egypt. In fact, in 2000, archeologists discovered many facinating artefacts, including glasswork of great beauty and excellent craftsmanship.

These were found in Sudan and according to Time Magazine, some artefacts were dated to about 8000 years B.C. Astronomy was also well organized in Nubia during the period and an astronomical observatory dating back to about 7000 B.C. was found in Sudan as well. It is also in Sudan that a large number of ancient cities exist.

The Nubians also built a large number of small pyramids later on in their history but they used a very sophisticated system of tombs to bury their kings. Many were similar in style to the early Egyptian Mastabas.

Those of later centuries were small pyramids with chapels built on top and the tombs and beneath the ground.

===============
WHO ARE THE DESCENDANTS OF THE ANCIENT NUBIANS TODAY
===============

The birth of Nubianism or the return of the Nubian consciousness, study of Nubian history, reverence for Nubian culture and the recognition of the Nubian blood and lineage started in Nubia, right there in the South of Egypt, where to be Nubian is to belong to the world's longest lasting civilization and the belonging to a people with the longest lasting kingship on earth.

It may be surprising to note that the Nubian monarchy continues to exist today and Nubians continue to have their king, although the land of Nubia is occupied by invaders (and their culture, religions and laws) who originally migrated from the northern Semitic lands, and who have mixed in with some Sudanese to create a new type of people similar to South.

Today, the Nubas of the Nuba Mountains are direct descendants of the ancient Nubians.

The Nuer People of Sudan, the Dinkas and a number of "Nilotic" peoples as well as many people in East Africa of Bantu linguistic origins are also of Nubian origins.

In fact, although it is said that the Bantu ( Ba-Ntu ) migrated from Nigeria to populate the rest of Southern Africa about five thousand years ago, there is a significant of what appears to be close linguistic similarities between some Nilotic and ancient Egyptian and Cushite languages with the Bantu Languages, both of which originated in the Sahara.

==========

These similarities include the "Ba" prefix to name nationalities, such as "Ba-luba" "Ba-kongo," or the "N' to denote persons and groups, such as "Ntu" (probably nation or people) or Ndabaningi (a person's name) or "N-g-r" (God in ancient Egyptian) or the word "N-t-y-r" (Nature, God, sacred in ancient Egyptian).

==========

Hence, these tall and medium height peoples of Africa who are spread from Ethiopia and Somalia to West Africa and south to Zululand are all connected.

They were once spread as far as Turkey and Southern Europe in Preshitoric times and as far as Fiji and ancient Mexico. One of the most important migrations of Africans to the Americas occurred about 600 B.C., when groups of people from West Africa who worshipped Shngo the Thunder Element and who used the axe, migrated to Mexico about 600's B.C. and introduced their religions.

According to Sitchin......

Blacks with Egyptian connections migrated to Mexico about 3113 B.C. and on that date, introduced the first calendar to Mexico. Others have pointed out that the Olmecs were a combination of West Africans and Nubians (see "A History of the African-Olmecs pub by 1st Books Library.

The distances between the two cultures are thousands of miles apart, however, both the Carthaginians and Pharaoh Nikau sent people to West Africa to trade between 600 B.C. and 450 B.C. respectively. The West Africans and Nubians most likely collaborated with each other and had cultural contact.

==============
NUBIANS IN SUDAN AND SOUTHERN EGYPT RISE
==============

Nubian consciousness is one that is extremely strong regardless of the present state of the Nubians. In fact, the Nubians suffered a sever blow when they were removed from their sacred lands in Southern Egypt for the building of the Aswan Dam some decades ago. Many ancient Nubian sites, ruins and valuable lands are now covered with water, in what many Blacks see as a swift wiping out of the evidence of Nubia's greatness.

Still, the Nubians continue to maintain their pride and their culture. They continue to maintain their history and to make sure that their contributions to world civilizations is not stolen. During a conversation with Nubians, Professor Gates (who made a documentary on African history about two years ago) found out first hand that Nubians in Nubia continue to maintain the great pride in self that was part of the spiritual consciousness that made Nubian civilization great and long-lasting.

===========

THE RISE OF NUBIANISM IN AMERICA

===========

One fact must be realized by Blacks in the Americas. That fact is that Blacks West Africa who are not of the Pygmy tribes (where there are few if any) are of the same origins as Africans in Sudan.

In fact, among many Yorubas and others, there is the belief that Nubians migrated from Egypt during the Exodus and settled in Mali, then moved southward into Nigeria and the region.

There are other sources that point to the coming of groups from Egypt and sudan about 1100 to 1500 B.C. from the Nubia region of Sudan and Southern Egypt.

The identification with Nubian Civilization and culture by African Americans is only natural, since many African-Americans, if not most are related and directly connected to Africans who came in from West Africa, the Congo-Angola region, Sudan/Ethiopia region and an area from Central Africa to Mozambique.

The Spaniards and Portugese got captives from West Africa but they also got many from Southern and Eastern Africa as well. The British and French got captives from West and Central Africa.

So, considering the ancient linguistic connections with Sudan and the fact that many of our ancestors actually came from this region, then the Black glorification with Nubian civilization is only proper.

It is even more accurate that English connection with Greek civilization, which had begun by the ancient Khemites who inhabited the Greek Islands and Crete before the "Aryan" migrations from Central Asia into Greece, Southern and Western Europe.

Hotep!

The Educational Importance to Fundraise for Sankofa Academy

2010-10-03T11:45:00.000-07:00

Ollie McClean has Incorporated within her school.....

"CULTURE AS A WEAPON
EDUCATION AS A TOOL FOR LIBERATION
THEREFORE, GIVING ALTERNATIVES
IMPLANTING THE AFROCENTRIC SEED OF PRIDE!"

Quote - C. Barron
======================

Spirit of Sankofa*.......
===================

Ms. Ollie McClean is the founder of Sankofa Preparatory School Int'l.
I have much respect for this woman of Afrocentric Culture.
She envisioned a school, that would teach, the importance of African cultural awareness, taught to "Children of African Descent".

There is a genuine need for our children to learn about self.
Her philosophy is.....as she was taught by her mother....

We are originally Ethiopians....we built the pyramids, created languages and religion, there is no way you can't do simple math.

Every school day she reinerates daily to the students of Sankofa...
You are born "Geniuses", it is born in you!

========
Snapshot:
========

Ms. McClean also feels our Black youth today feel they have no hope. They too, also have been brainwashed through negative messages through media and music. An example of this, is a rapper who is in jail, that puts out a song called "I AM NOT HUMAN". Demonizing us to a point they don't deserve to feel, learn and to achieve.

The fear is how long before our youth would pick this negative message and really believe this?

There is also a fear in our society, that if Blacks were taught their history, that they would no longer want to be American?

We have a great need to learn and love ourselves. We can't deceive ourselves any longer ,by believing we will attain the American dream, as it's portrayed by the familiar path of today.

Schools like Sankofa desperately need our support. schools that incorporate as part of their curriculum for our children....learning of all the African countries in Africa. etc....

Sankofa needs the community to step forth and see the importance of this non funding school. There should be more like this in the Black communities. Taking the example of this great sister, who didn't have much money to fund a project like this.

She sought out retired family members who worked with the Bd. of Ed. and others to help this school. She also explains how Sankofa was started in a vacant church then later held classes in an occupied church edifice.

Jitu Weusi

Activist and educator Jitu Weusi has worked to uplift and develop the cultural and social awareness of the African American community of Central Brooklyn...

Has supported the Sankofa School as well as Charles Barron. Inez Barron educator and the wife of C. Barron, stated, that principles need a business manage, so they can focus more on the curriculum of educating.

SPIRIT OF SANKOFA*
=================

Activists and artists fundraise for Sankofa Academy
==============================

Statistics on the state of Black education often remind us of despair. Sankofa International Academy reminds us that there is hope. Sankofa's roadmap reminds us that it is our collective responsibility, as an entire community, to ensure that no child is left behind educationally, socially or culturally. Together, we have a role in creating the kind of world we want for generations to come.

Rome Neal and friends demonstrated why it is time to shift the conversation from talking about our pain to talking about our plan. On the evening of March 14, Rome teamed up with Franz Mettelus, owner of Rustic Tavern at 471 DeKaIb Avenue in Brooklyn; John Smith; and Jitu Weusi and held a fundraiser to showcase their plan of action in addressing the primary financial concerns of Sankofa.

=======================
City Councilwoman Leticia James reminded everyone that independent education plays a very important role in the educational discourse, especially when it comes to meeting the needs of the African child. She stressed that the reason for supporting Sankofa's students is so that they can continue to become geniuses in their own rights, achieving the status of scientist, astronaut or even president.
=======================

The sea of artists who brought their collective talent to support this exceptional school was comprised of jazz vocalist Patsy Grant, Lou Vega on guitar, Eric Frazer on congas, Gene Torres on bass, and Al Husband and Larry Williams on drums. They all kept the guests entertained with their riveting melodies.

The supporters were from all walks of life and included Councilman Charles Barron; the Rev. Herbert Oliver of the Montgomery Bus Boycott; Dr. James Mcintosh, CEMOTAP; attorney Colin Moore and his wife; Michael Hooper, Roots Revisited; Min.Clemson Brown, historian; Brenda Brunson-Bey, Tribal Truth Collection; and Malchijah Hats.

Ollie McClean, founder and director of Sankofa, summed up the event in her remarks by stating that the essence of education is the practice of freedom and that many politicaUy motivated educational plans have failed because the authors designed them according to their own personal views of reality, never once taking into account the children of African ancestry, to whom their program is ostensibly directed. However, Sankofa offers a course of study rich in cultural history and academics, thus addressing the "whole" child.

For more information, contact Sankofa International Academy, Post Office Box 330-505, Brooklyn, NY or call the school at (347) 365-9989.

New York Amsterdam News,
Mar 25-Mar 31, 2010

HOTEP*

Mambukal Mudpack Festival

2010-10-03T05:41:00.000-07:00

June 6, 2010

Held at the height of monsoon season, the Mambukal Mudpack Festival in Murcia, Negros Occidental, celebrates the harmony of man and nature and encourages environmentalism among young people.

To get in the spirit, participants cover themselves with the rich soil known as Mambukal clay.

=====================

Source: National Geographic
http://photography.nationalgeographic.com/photography/photo-of-the-day/mambukal-mudpack-festival/

Descendants of 1st Black US Doctor mark NYC grave

2010-10-02T11:57:00.000-07:00

NEW YORK (AP) -- White descendants of the nation's first professionally trained African-American doctor gathered in a cemetery on Sunday to dedicate a tombstone at the unmarked grave where he was buried in 1865.

"Right now I feel so connected in a new way, to actually be here," said Antoinette Martignoni, the 91-year-old great-granddaughter of James McCune Smith. "I take a deep breath, and I thank God, I really do. I am so glad to have lived this long."

Smith, born in New York City in 1813, wanted to be a doctor but was denied entry to medical schools in the United States. He earned a degree from the University of Glasgow in Scotland, then returned to New York to practice. Besides being a doctor, he was celebrated in his lifetime as a writer and an anti-slavery leader.

Although scholars have written books about Smith, who set up a medical practice in lower Manhattan and became the resident physician at an orphanage, his descendants knew nothing about him until recently.

The story of why Smith was nearly overlooked by history and buried in an unmarked grave is in part due to the centuries-old practice of light-skinned blacks passing as white to escape racial prejudice. Smith's mother had been a slave; his father was white. Three of his children lived to adulthood, and they all apparently passed as white, scholars say.

Greta Blau, Smith's great-great-great-granddaughter, made the connection after she took a course at Hunter College on the history of blacks in New York. She did some research and realized that James McCune Smith the trailblazing black doctor was the same James McCune Smith whose name was inscribed in a family Bible belonging to Martignoni, her grandmother.

Her first response was, "But he was black. I'm white."

Blau, of New Haven, Conn., concluded that after Smith's death, his surviving children must have passed as white, and their children and grandchildren never knew they had a black forbear, let alone such an illustrious one.

Blau contacted all the Smith descendants she could find and invited them to join her Sunday for a ceremony dedicating a handsome tombstone at Smith's grave at Brooklyn's Cypress Hills Cemetery.

Eleven of Smith's descendants went to lay flowers at the cemetery, the final resting place of other notables including baseball player Jackie Robinson and actress Mae West.

Blau's aunt Elizabeth Strazar said she had grown up believing her ethnic heritage was English, Irish, Scottish and French.

"Now I can say I'm English, Irish, African-American and French, which I feel very proud of," she said.

Joanne Edey-Rhodes, the professor whose course led Blau to discover her ancestor, said Blau had written about Smith in her paper for the course.

"She was writing about this person and didn't realize that that was her very own ancestor," Edey-Rhodes said.

Edey-Rhodes, who's black, said that to be black in America in Smith's time "was a horrible condition."

"Black people were a despised group, and to many we still are a despised group in the world," she said. "I think that it is so important that at this time in history, that a family that is classified as white can say, 'I have this African-American ancestor,' and be able to do it without any shame, without having to hide it."

The tombstone dedication was followed by a panel discussion at St. Philip's Episcopal Church in Harlem. Smith was an active member of the church, which was at another location in his lifetime.

The Rev. Craig Townsend, an Episcopal priest and scholar, said Smith's faith in God bolstered his belief that human beings are equal. Townsend passed out copies of an 1850 letter Smith had written to a friend after the death of his 5-year-old daughter.

"After a year of ailment, at times painful and distressing, always obscure, and which she bore with childlike patience, it pleased God to take her home to the Company of Cherubs who continually do Praise Him," Smith wrote.

"This is beautiful," Townsend said.

Dr. Vanessa Northington Gamble, a medical doctor and historian at George Washington University who has championed equal medical treatment for blacks, noted that Smith wrote articles in medical journals and the popular press debunking notions of black inferiority that were mainstream in his time.

"As early as 1859, Dr. McCune Smith said that race was not biological but was a social category," Gamble said. "I feel that I am standing on the shoulders of Dr. James McCune Smith."

Source - AP

Let's Teach Sherrod's Speech in Schools

2010-07-26T06:54:00.000-07:00

The Power Of Redemption

Shirley Sherrod's speech, and her story, has lessons for us all.

Peggy Noonan

She was smeared by right-wing media, condemned by the NAACP, and canned by the Obama administration. It wasn't pretty, what was done this week to Shirley Sherrod.

Here's a way to get some good. This September, when school begins, we should make the speech required viewing in the nation's high schools. It packs quite a lesson within quite a story.
====

Sherrods' Story
====================

"My father was a farmer, and growing up on the farm my dream was to get as far away from the farm and Baker County as I could get." She worked "picking cotton, picking cucumbers, shaking peanuts. . . . Doing all that work on the farm, it will make you get an education." She wanted to escape. "The older folks know what I'm talking about."

Go North, she thought. She'd seen black people who'd moved up North return on vacation: "You know how they came back talking, and came back looking." The audience laughed. "I learned later some of those cars they drove home were rented." The audience laughed louder.

She was 17 when her father was killed, in 1965. After that, one night, a cross was burned on their lawn. Her mother had a gun, and black men from throughout the county came and surrounded the white men who surrounded the house. Shirley was terrified and hid in a back room, praying. That night something changed. "I made the decision that I would stay and work."

She wouldn't leave the South but change it. Here she addressed the youthful members of her audience: "Young people, I want you to know when you are true to what God wants you to do, the path just opens up, and things just come to you. God is good, I can tell you that."

But when she made her decision, "I was making that commitment to black people only."
She didn't care about whites.

Almost a quarter-century ago, she was working for a farmers aid group when she was asked to help a couple named Roger and Eloise Spooner. They were losing their farm, and they were white.

Mr. Spooner made a poor impression. He "took a long time talking." She thought he was trying to establish a superior intelligence. "What he didn't know while he was talking all that time . . . was I was trying to decide just how much help I was gonna give him. I was struggling with the fact that so many black people had lost their farmland." So she did enough to meet her responsibilities, but no more. She took him to "a white lawyer," figuring "that his own kind will take care of him."

The lawyer took the farmer's money and, she said, did little else. She assumed things had been taken care of. But in May 1987, Mr. Spooner received a foreclosure notice and he called her, frantic. His house was to be sold a week later on the courthouse steps, and no motion had been filed to stop it.

They all met. The lawyer suggested the farmer retire. "I said, 'I can't believe you said that.'"

Indignant, she set herself to save the Spooners' farm. "That's when it was revealed to me that it's about poor versus those who have," not white versus black. "It opened my eyes." She worked the phones, reached out to those who could help, talked to more lawyers, called officials.

And she saved that farm.

"Working with him," said Ms. Sherrod, "made me see . . . that it's really about those who have versus those who don't." It's helping the frightened and powerless. "And they could be black, they could be white, they could be Hispanic."

She said that 45 years ago she couldn't say what she will say tonight: "I've come a long way. I knew that I couldn't live with hate, you know. As my mother has said to so many, 'If we had tried to live with hate in my heart, we probably be dead now.'" She said it was "sad" that the room was not "full of whites and blacks." She quoted Toni Morrison: We have to get to a point where "race exists but it doesn't matter."

There is beauty in the speech, and bravery too. It was brave because her subject wasn't the nation's failures and your failures but her failures. The beauty is that it deals with the great subject of our lives: how to be better, how to make the world better. It's not a perfect speech—she's tendentious in her support for health care and takes cheap shots at Republicans. And it's not the poor versus the rich, it's the powerful helping the powerless. But it's good.

You know what happened this week. Someone cut the 45-minute speech down to less than two minutes, to the part in which she talked about not wanting to help white people. Andrew Breitbart ran it on one of his websites and made Ms. Sherrod look like a race-game-playing government bully.

And then the Spooners stepped in, and this time they saved her. Is Ms. Sherrod a racist, they were asked. "No way in the world," said Roger Spooner. "She stuck with us." Eloise: "She helped us, so we're helping her."

We are not skeptical enough, of what the news media can cook up in its little devil's den. That anyone can be the victim of a high-tech lynching, and because of this, we have to be careful, slow down, look deeper.

We live in a time when what you say is taped, and those tapes can be cut, and the cuts can be ruinous, and if you think it only happens to the rich and famous, think again. It's coming to a theater near you.

And for students? What can they learn? How about: Individuals can change, just like nations. They can get better, if they want to be.

What's more important than that? What do students need to hear more?

It really can be a teachable moment. It can.

Source: WALL STREET JOURNAL

=============

I COULDN'T AGREE MORE WITH THIS REPORT....THIS IS A STEP TO SHARE VIEWS AMONG OUR YOUNG PEOPLE!

Even non-students can learn a thing or two, including "we're too quick to judge" and we're "not skeptical enough of what news media can cook up in its little devil's den," writes Noonan. As for our country's teenagers, they'd be lucky to soak up this all-important life lesson: "Individuals can change, just like nations. They can get better, if they want to be."

====================

SANKOFA*

Is there a racial double standard here?

Lately, there has been loads of comments by right wing radicals who..
(1) make racist remarks about blacks while also
(2) claiming that blacks are the real racists.

The results shows...because of their racist views ....
We are left with inaccurate or altered statements from people, not doing their homework.

This seems to be a political practice in the US, to take part of what someone says; and manipulate public views. Therefore, shaping public opinion, by airing or printing only half the truth.
==============================

"We find it ironic that in the 100 years of USDA's history of discrimination not a single white person has been dismissed for discrimination," Mikheila Sherrod, wife of Kenyatta Sherrod, said. "However, a black woman who is doing her job well is falsely accused of discrimination in an altered video and it was decided that she can no longer do a credible and nondiscriminatory job of dispensing USDA rural development programs and must resign."
===============================================

Ms. Sherrod termination was immediately aired with a reason of claim to being a racist when now we later find the video tape was edited.

I believe after reading some of the responses to the news of what the media has aired, people are quick to jump the gun, and believe the report instead of waiting it out or doing some research on their own, before rendering a decision.

Sherrod, who is black and was working at the time for a nonprofit group, said she learned that the plight of poverty goes beyond race.

========

The rural development director for the Agriculture Department in Georgia, said she was inclined not to return to the agency. Secretary Tom Vilsack on Wednesday said he was asking her to return to use her expertise to help move the department past its checkered history in race relations, but she told the “Today” show on NBC that she did not want the burden of solving the department’s racial problems to rest entirely on her.

SHERROD: Why am I out?

They asked me to resign. And, in fact, they harassed me as I was driving back to the state office from West Point, Georgia, yesterday. I had at least three calls telling me the White House wanted me to resign.

Shirley Sherrod is asking; How did she get ousted out of the USDA and the NAACP without any explanation?

When I made that commitment I was making that commitment to black people and to black people only," she said in the video released Tuesday. "But you know, God will show you things. ... You realize that the struggle is really about poor people."

She said she would like to have a conversation with Mr. Obama, but does not believe he owes her an apology.

“I’d like to talk to him a little bit about the experiences of people like me, people at the grass-roots level, people who live out there in rural America, people who live in the South,” she said on the show.

“I know he does not have that kind of experience. Let me help him a little bit with how we think, how we live, and the things that are happening.”

Once the truth came out, Ms. Sherrod had gained instant fame and emerged as the heroine of a compelling story about race and redemption.

What's happening here is; she was guilty in the public view, until proven innocent.
It would be great, if the wheels of Justice turned at the same speed on both sides of the spectrum.

To rid our country of racist thoughts and views, especially in the political level.

How and why would you be forced to resign, just because you are relating a story, a 24-year-old incident to make a point? It's beyond me.............

Seems as though it's time for the Nation to DEAL with this can of rotten worms.

"Having reviewed the full tape, spoken to Ms. Sherrod, and most importantly heard the testimony of the white farmers mentioned in this story, we now believe the organization that edited the documents did so with the intention of deceiving millions of Americans."

How could the NAACP render a statement , without a full investigation of the tape?

Sherrod's family, statement about the NAACP, we are disappointed in their actions and rush to judgment. As fellow civil rights activists and Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) members, my mother, my father, Charles Sherrod, and all our family members, have stood in support of the NAACP and fought along side them.

"To see them desert us in our time of need has been difficult — shame on you."

Pretty much everyone else had egg on his face — from the conservative bloggers and pundits who first pushed the inaccurate story.

It remains unclear who edited and released the shorter video.

Sherrod, in a TV interview Tuesday morning, said she lost her job because the Obama administration overreacted to the original story.

"They were not interested in hearing the truth. No one wanted to hear the truth," she said.

"It is in fact a sad day when one cannot speak with honesty of their personal transformation without being condemned."

=====

Bottom line................

If she was simply relating an anecdotal story from 1986 to make a point about how her racial perceptions have changed, give her back her job.

Stop the Character Assassination Of Our People (Blacks) Without Due Process.

HOTEP SANKOFA*

Positive

Education

Always

Correct's

Error

Sarah Rector The Richest Black Girl In The World

2010-05-19T05:20:00.000-07:00

Sankofa*

Many of Blacks pride themselves in the knowledge that Madame C.J. Walker and Oprah are / were successful millionaires. However, there is a bit of Black History that goes back to 1914 that most of the Black Community has never heard of.

A 10 year old millionaire, made headlines like this .....

"The Kansas City Star reported: “Millions to a Negro Girl - Sarah Rector, 10-Year Old, Has Income of $300 A Day From Oil,”

Little known history brought to light.............

By Stacey Patton

Sarah Rector
========

Her name was Sarah Rector. She was a young black girl born in Indian Territory on March 3, 1902. Her parents were Joseph and Rose Rector

Oil made her rich. Oklahoma Girl With $15,000 A Month Gets Many Proposals – Four White Men in Germany Want to Marry the Negro Child That They Might Share Her Fortune.”

This headline, which appeared in The Kansas City Star on January 15, 1914, was just the first of many newspaper and magazine headlines during the next decade about Sarah Rector, the richest black child known to the world in that era.

In September, 1913, The Kansas City Star reported: “Millions to a Negro Girl - Sarah Rector, 10-Year Old, Has Income of $300 A Day From Oil,” and The Savannah Tribune ran: “Oil Well Produces Neat Income – Negro Girl’s $112,000 A Year.”

In 1914 and 1915, the Salt Lake Telegram, The Oregonian and American Magazine profiled the “bewildered little ten year-old girl” and told of how she inherited her “big income” but still wore tattered dresses and slept each night in a big armchair beside her six siblings in a two-room prairie house in Muskogee, Oklahoma.

By the early 1920s, many newspapers covered the court battles involving white men seeking to become Rector’s guardian to gain control over her estate.

She was one of a group of Creek freedman children who were given land allotments by the U.S. government as part of the Treaty of 1866.

=========

Sarah Rector was born in 1902, near Taft in Indian Territory, the northeastern part of present-day Oklahoma. Though she was “colored,” she was not an African-American child and had no concept of what it meant to be an American citizen. Rector was a descendant of slaves who had been owned by Creek Indians before the Civil War.

In 1866, the Creek Nation signed a treaty with the United States government promising to emancipate their 16,000 slaves and incorporate them into their nation as citizens entitled to “equal interest in the soil and national funds.”

Two decades later, the federally imposed Dawes Allotment Act of 1887 sparked the beginning of the “total assimilation” of the Indians of the so-called Five Civilized Tribes by forcing them to live on individually-owned lots of land instead of communally as they had done for centuries.

There was a great deal of resistance to this plan by the Creeks and other tribes, who viewed it as yet another tactic by the U.S. government to destroy the tribe’s political sovereignty and way of life.

==================================
But as a result of the Dawes Allotment Act, nearly 600 black children, or Creek Freedmen minors as they were called, inherited 160 acres of land, unlike their African-American counterparts who were granted citizenship after slavery but never got that promised “forty acres and a mule.”
==================================

To the surprise of U.S. government officials, a few old and young allottees like Sarah Rector found that their land came with crude oil and other minerals underneath the soil.

When she was born, Rector was given a rough, hilly allotment, considered worthless agriculturally, in Glenpool, 60 miles from where she and her family lived. Her father had petitioned the Muskogee County Court to sell the land, but he was denied because of certain restrictions placed on the land, for which he was required to continue paying taxes.

In 1913, when she was ten years old, large pools of oil were discovered on Rector’s land. One year later, her land produced so much oil that she had already yielded $300,000; her fortune was increasing at a rate of $10,000 per month. Her mother had died years earlier from tuberculosis. In 1914, her father died in prison, leaving her orphaned.

Even before her father’s death, Rector was appointed a guardian who was responsible for managing Rector’s money and providing for her education and care.

The law at the time required full-blooded Indians, black adults and children who were citizens of Indian Territory with significant property and money, to be assigned “well-respected” white guardians who often cheated them out of their lands.

There are stories of swindlers, oil tycoons and other unscrupulous types who kidnapped and murdered the children and adults to get their land.

================================
Unlike other hapless waifs who fell victim to fraud, losing their land and wealth while growing up in a western frontier fraught with violence, fraud and racism, Rector was one of a few black children able to ward off greedy guardians and retain her wealth as an adult.
================================

Rector graduated high school, attended Tuskegee University, and then moved to Kansas City at age 19. She purchased a mansion on Twelfth Street, entertaining Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Joe Louis and Jack Johnson at lavish parties. Not much is known of her later life other than stories of how she splurged on jewelry, fine clothes, and cars.

Much of Rector’s adult life is still needs to be developed, as is the case for the study of the history of black childhood in America. Rector is significant because hers is a vital yet untold story about the complexities or race, childhood, and citizenship on the American frontier in the early 20th century.

================
Source of story:

Sarah Rector The Richest Colored Girl in the World The Defenders Online A Civil Rights Blog
===============

James Hampton Throne Room

2010-05-07T05:37:00.000-07:00

Sankofa........
========

Did James Hampton have a "Revelation"? Or was he just a gifted artist?

Can we believe his report? If not, what would drive someone to fervently work day after day to build what was shown to him? At any rate he had "Vision".

I wanted to spotlight this particular brother, because I feel he has accomplished something no one in our time has...........

Em-Hotep*

===========

"The Revelation of Saint John the Devine." He intended, when he was done, to open a storefront ministry with the 180-component liturgical assembly for its centerpiece. Begun about 1950, the toil went on fourteen years in the hours after midnight

The Throne of the Third Heaven of the Nations'

James Hampton (April 8, 1909–November 4, 1964) was an African-American janitor who secretly built a large assemblage of religious art from scavenged materials.[1]

James Hampton was born in Elloree, South Carolina in 1909. His father was a gospel singer and a traveling Baptist preacher. In 1928, Hampton left for Washington, D.C. to join his elder brother Lee. They shared an apartment. James Hampton worked as a short-order cook until 1942 when he was drafted into United States Army Air Forces. He served as a carpenter with the noncombatant 385th Aviation Squadron around the Pacific theatre. He was honorably discharged in 1945 and returned to Washington, D.C.

In 1946, Hampton became a night janitor with the General Services Administration. In 1950 he rented a garage in northwest Washington.

Hampton died of stomach cancer on November 4, 1964 at the Veteran's Hospital in Washington, D.C. He never married.

Part of the passage in the reference to Corinthians in Hampton's photo speaks of "a man in Christ caught up to the third heaven whether in the body, or out of the body, I cannot tell: God knoweth." - Photo courtesy of the Smithsonian Art Museum
======================

A month later Meyer Wertlieb, owner of the garage, came to find out why the rent had not been paid. He knew that Hampton had been building something in the garage. When he opened the door, he found a room filled with many symmetrical, glittering objects surrounding a central throne.

Born the son of an itinerant, self-ordained minister and gospel singer in 1909 at Elloree, South Carolina, Hampton migrated when he was nineteen to the District of Columbia. There he had visions, which he recorded. The earliest note of one that survives reads: "This is true that the great Moses the giver of the 10th commandment appeared in Washington DC, April 11, 1931."

He believed he had the best companionship for which a man could ask. God, Hampton said, instructed him each night as work on The Throne of the Third Heaven of the Nations' Millennium General Assembly advanced toward the dawn.

Hampton's vision of the heaven of the sky, the heaven of the planets, and the heaven of the Almighty, and the gathering of the nations foretold for when Christ returned at the end of days. Then, according to the New Testament, the deity, attended by angels, is to appear on a throne to reign over the New Jerusalem.

For 14 years, Hampton had been building a throne out of various old materials like aluminum and gold foil, old furniture, various pieces of cardboard, old light bulbs, shards of mirror and old desk blotters. He had pinned it together with tacks, glue, pins and tape.

It is unknown whether Hampton considered himself an artist. Hampton's work would be an example of folk or native art — art made by people who are self-taught, who have not studied art techniques, art history, or art theory.

============

The "No. 1" Crown Hampton fashioned for The Throne of the Third Heaven shrine bears a citation from Revelations 7:3, in which one angel tells four others: "Hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees, till we have sealed the servants of our God in their foreheads." - Photo courtesy of the Smithsonian Art Museum

The text The Throne of the Third Heaven of the Nations' Millennium General Assembly was written on the objects in Hampton's handwriting. He had emblazoned the words Fear Not above the central throne. The garage contained a total of 177 objects. Many of them were inscribed with words out of the biblical Book of Revelation. The objects on the right side of the central throne seem to refer to the New Testament and those on the left side to the Old Testament.

Hampton built his masterwork of metallic foils, paper, plastic, strips of metal cut from coffee cans, jelly jars, flower vases, lightbulbs, wood furniture, cardboard, conduit, glue, tape, tacks, and pins. The foil-wrapped bulbs are a poetic reference to Jesus as the light of the world. When dust settled on the objects, Hampton recovered them instead of cleaning.

==============

The Stand is from the first rank of the three-tiered assembly, its foil-wrapped electric bulbs an apparent poetic reference to the deity as the light of the world. -Photo courtesy of the Smithsonian Art Museum

==============

Photo courtesy of the Smithsonian Art Museum
He said of his project, "That is my life. I'll finish before I die." There were, however, leftover pieces and spare parts when he passed away, never having opened his church, in 1964. No one knew of Hampton's creation save his landlord, who took possession of it all in lieu of back rent. He also got a collection of encoded writings, kept in ring binders or on clipboards, penned by Hampton in a secret alphabet, that have yet to be deciphered. Among them is The Book of the 7 Dispensations by St. James, each page of which ends with the word "Revelation." Colonial

Hampton had also kept a 112-page notebook, titled St James: The Book of the 7 Dispensation, written in his personal code. He referred to himself as St. James and ended each page with the word "Revelation". He had written more text on various pieces of paper and cardboard. Some of them refer to religious visions. Hampton's personal code remains unsolved.

In Hampton's writing he kept the title "Director, Special Projects for the State of Eternity"

The story became public in the December 15, 1964 issue of the Washington Post. Hampton had kept his project secret; his relatives first heard about it when his sister came to claim his body.

=======

Wertlieb donated it to the National Museum of American Art of the Smithsonian Institution (now the Smithsonian American Art Museum) in 1970. All he asked was that his name be listed as the donor. He was promised this by the representatives of the Smithsonian but it never occurred prior to or after it moved to the new Museum. His family has been working on this since his death in 2000.

KING NJOYA INVENTOR OF SHUMOM WRITING SYSTEM

2010-04-30T07:07:00.000-07:00

African “Renaissance Man” Writing System

No known alphabet was ever invented by a European."

========================================
King Ibrahim Njoya, distinguished ruler, intellectual, and inventor, was 17th in a long dynasty of kings that ruled over Bamum and its people in western Cameroon dating back to the 14th century. He succeeded his father Nsangu (hn-SAH-hn-goo)[1] and ruled from the year 1889 until his death in 1933. He was succeeded on the throne by his son, Seidou Njimoluh Njoya.

Njoya's mother, Njapdunke, initially acted as regent until he reach majority. His own official rule was further delayed because his father's head was held by an adversary people. By tradition the head or skull of an ancestor is of ceremonial importance to the Bamum. The Germans would aid him in recovering the head and this, along with their allowing him relative independence, caused him to have generally good relations with them. Although an additional factor seems to have been a belief that fighting the Germans would prove counterproductive to his people. Hence he rejected the resistance proposals of Rudolf Duala Manga Bell.[2]

He also initially tried to adapt Western, and particularly German, ways to his society. In one experiment the uniforms of his soldiers were influenced by an idealized version of those worn by the Hussars. This experiment met with disfavor from Germans who either felt mocked or intimidated by Africans trained and dressed in a German-influenced manner.[3] He also studied Christianity for a time, possibly converting to it and also to Islam at a different point. After this he ultimately created his own religion that mixed Christianity, Islam, and Bamum traditional religion.[4]

Later his relations with the French would prove more negative and he died in exile in Yaounde.

The Shumom people are the people of Cameroon in West Africa. Their country is located between Nigeria in the West, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon and Congo Brazzaville in the South and Chad and Central African Republic in the North. Within Cameroon, the land of the Shumom people is located in the northern part. It is a land of massif plateau and mountains, valleys and vast forested land, a part of the great equatorial forest of West and Central Africa. Foumban is the administrative capital of the district.

In the beginning of the 20th century or perhaps earlier, the people of Cameroon were able to accomplish one of the most remarkable African achievements of the century: the invention of a self-sustaining and selfgoverning writing system and a printing device to document the histories of the people.

Sultan Ibrahim Njoya, whose father was killed resisting the German invaders, led the invention. The invention that started in the late nineteenth century (I 895 or 1896) was completed by the beginning of the 20' century in 1903. By the time of the Germans arrival, the writing system was in use in conjunction with the Bamum language, which is a tonal language, which means the meanings of a word will vary depending upon the tone with which the sound of the word is uttered. The system went through seven stages of development.

The first stage had over five hundred pictographs and the last stage has had only 35 syllographs, graphs designed to represent all the phonetic and tone sounds in the Bamum language of the Shumom people.

The first version of Shü-mom writing by Ibrahim Njoya (1897)

========

King Ibrahim Njoya developed a writing system called Shü-mom. He used it to compile pharmacopœia, design a calendar.

From a calendar written in 1897 by Ibrahim Njoya

Also, label maps that hold administrative records and legal codes—he even used to write a “Kama Sutra-like” book! Saki Mafundikwa correctly refers to him as a “Renaissance Man”—and most of these achievements took place under German Colonial rule! However, the French form of domination was less “tolerant”:

Detail from the Shü-mom syllabary by King Ibrahim Njoya, ruler of the Bamum (Cameroon, 1880–1931)

King Njoya opened a school in Fumban where many are trained to become literate and promote leaming in their own language. Several manuscripts and documents were produced, including the histories, laws and customs of the people and their neighbors. Two systems of writing were taught at the school: the Royal and the popular scripts.

King Ibrahim Njoya, ruler of the Bamum (Cameroon, 1880–1931) and inventor of Shü-mom writing, surrounded by other kings.

Not long after he had built a magnificent palace, the French took control of Cameroon. Their power was threatened by his achievements. They destroyed the printing press that he invented, destroyed his libraries, and burned many of the books he had written. The French soldiers threw Bamum sacred objects into the street. And finally, in 1931, they sent him into exile in the capital of Yaoundé where he died a broken man in 1933. Over the years, Njoya’s son and his heir Seidou Njimoluh quietly worked to preserve his heritage.

Innovations

=========

Ibrahim Njoya is credited with developing the Bamum script, a syllabic system for writing in the Bamum language. Prior to his reign at the end of the 19th century, the long history of the Bamum people was preserved primarily through oral transmission from one generation to the next in the manner of the African Griot tradition. This was largely true of many other African civilizations of the time. Recognizing the inherent danger of important historical facts being omitted or corrupted, he set out to establish a means of written recording of Bamum history. When his work was completed, his alphabet, called, A-ka-u-ku, contained 73 signs.

Njoya is also credited with having invented a hand-powered mill for grinding corn.

Palace built by King Ibrahim Njoya in 1917 His grandson, Ibrahim Mbombo Njoya, a present-day Sultan in Cameroon and the latest ruler in the Bamoun Dynasty, has established a school in the magnificent palace built by his grandfather, in which schoolchildren are once again learning the Bamum script developed by King Ibrahim Njoya.

==============

Tragically the most important documents are taken away by colonial masters out of Cameroon and they are housed in the French and British Museums. The Germans and later the French did not want to see the flourishing of a literary tradition among the Bamums. Not only they killed or exiled their leaders; they also violently banned the use of Shumom, thereby condemning the people to colonial dark age.

The remarkable accomplishments of the Cameroonians is in line with the long and glorious traditions of the inventions and use of writing systems, perhaps beginning with the hieroglyphics of the Ancient Egyptians whose earliest pictographic writing now dated to be 3400B.C.

The Shumom writing system was invented and used in such a participatory democracy where all the members of the society are asked by the king to participate in the project. King Njoya, the able and visionary leader, ordered his constituency to contribute symbols for the writing system.

Shü-mom “Vowels

In so doing not only he succeeded in ensuring a wide range of ideographic ideas to choose from, but he also paved the way for eventual acceptance of the system by the whole nation. This process combined with mythology would place the system as permanent cultural asset and legacy of the people.

King Njoya mythologized the invention of the Shumom writing system as follows:

"When King Njoya was asleep one night he had a dream. A man came and before him saying: 'Oh King, take a wide, flat piece of wood and mark on it a man's hand. Then wash the board and drink the water.' The king took a plank and made a mark as the man directed, and handed it to that man who also made a mark thereon and returned the plank to the King. In the dream there were many people sitting around, all schoolboys, and they had paper in their hands. They all made marks thereon and passed on what they marked to their neighbors.

"When it was daylight the King took a wide plank and marked thereon a man's hand. He then washed the plank with water and drank it, as the man in the dream directed. The King now summoned many of his courtiers and told them to mark out many things and to give names to all these things so that the result would be a book. In this way man's speech could be inaudibly recorded.

"Njoya asked whether the populace would be able to understand this silent speech. His courtiers replied: 'No, if things are done as you wish, no one will be able to interpret these marks.' Njoya asked whether it would not be as well to carry out his suggestions, and they replied: 'It is no use, no one will understand the meaning of these marks.' Njoya said to them: 'Go, sleep and ponder over the matter till it become clear.'

"The next day he summoned all his courtiers again and asked them, saying: 'What now do you think about this matter, this book business?' They replied that if he did as he suggested no one would be able to interpret the marks. Njoya said he agreed with them, and told them to leave the matter with him and he would try, and if the problem were too much for him he would abandon it. Nevertheless his courtiers were to make many signs, all different, and to bring them to him. He also made many signs.

"The King now collected all these signs, and called in Moma and Isiah (two Mohammedan Mallams) to help him plan. Five times he consulted with these two and by then he understood enough. When Njoya consulted with them again the problem was solved. Then he called together many of his courtiers and taught them the signs. Many people leamt and King Njoya was very pleased."2

King Njoya's magnum opus in the royal script ran to 1,100 pages and its replica is now with the Pitt-Rivers Museum of Oxford. The published text regarding the writing system was the combined works of MDW Jeffreys and Madam Dugast of France in 1950 under the title: L'Ecriture des Bamum and it was published in France.

King Njoya had also successfully surveyed and produced a map of his nation. This is also a remarkable feat by itself. Just imagine the natural and progressive development of the people of Cameroon without the rude and violent and destructive intervention of European colonialism!

The African Writing Systems Website Project presents the original and the final forms of the Shumom writing system. The original pictographs are truly magical with their artistic renderings of the lives and imaginations of the people. It was a joy reproducing them in their entirety.

THE MIS-EDUCATION OF DR. HENRY LOUIS GATES JR.

2010-04-29T10:57:00.000-07:00

Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. recently wrote an interesting piece for the New York Times called, "Ending the Slavery Blame Game." In the piece, Gates argues that the fight for reparations is convoluted and some what mitigated by the fact that African elites participated in the slave trade.

Sorry Dr. Gates, but I must respectfully (or perhaps not so respectfully) disagree.

====

Exerts from his article......

=============

Ending the Slavery Blame-Game - By Professor Henry Gates.

Queen Njinga, the brilliant 17th-century monarch of the Mbundu, waged wars of resistance against the Portuguese but also conquered polities as far as 500 miles inland and sold her captives to the Portuguese. When Njinga converted to Christianity, she sold African traditional religious leaders into slavery, claiming they had violated her new Christian precepts.

=============
Sankofa's rebuttal...

She compromised, until she could free her people eventually. They both agreed, Zhinga would convert to Christianity help the Portuguese with the slave trade, also, help to control a war like clan jaga. Portuguese wouldn't remove their troops from Mbdunda. Didn't recognized Ngola kingdom in Angola. During the war the Portugese government meeting, The Queen stated ...

She would release them when they release her people from Brazil.

===============
More from Pro. Gates......

Some Africans were driven to this only by the unprecedented profits offered by greedy European countries.”

GATES ARTICLE IN NY TIMES QUOTES.....Ghana exported slaves and used the profits to import gold.

===============

The Complete version of truth is.....

Until March 1957, Ghana was known to much of the world as the "Gold Coast". The Portuguese who came to Ghana in the 15th Century found so much Gold between the rivers Ankobra and the Volta that they named the place Mina – meaning Mine.

The Gold Coast was later adopted by English colonists. The French, impressed with the trinkets worn by the coastal people, named the area to the west “Cote d’Ivoire,” or Ivory Coast.

Ghana was also the site of the Empire of Ashanti which was perhaps the most advanced black state in sub-Sahara Africa. It is said that at its peak, the King of Ashanti could field 500,000 troops

ELMINA CASTLE ...Where Africans were kept until their time to be transported to the New World.

In 1481, King John II of Portugal commissioned Diogo d’Azambuja to build Elmina Castle, which was completed the next year.

Did Africans devise a map or plan to capture slaves and imprison them in Elmina?

=================

How and why would Ghana want to sell slaves for gold , when they were known as the GOLD COAST?

=========================================

Bottom Line.......................................

EUROPEANS DEVISED A PLAN OF EXECUTION, MAPPED IT, SORTED OUT MONEY AND APPROVAL. THROUGH THE POPE WHICH HAD GIVEN HIS BLESSINGS ON SLAVERY.
THE QUEEN SPONSORED THE SLAVE SHIPS AND CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS MAPPED THE WAY TO THE BEGINNING OF THE MOST HEINOUS CRIME TO THE AFRICAN CONTINENT. AKA "The NEW WORLD".

YES THEN AND NOW WE CAN STILL PUT THE BLAME WHERE IT ALWAYS BEEN, REGARDLESS WHO AIDED THEM IN THE CAPTURE OF AFRICANS.

More exerts from Dr. Gates article.............
The historians John Thornton and Linda Heywood of Boston University estimate that 90 percent of those shipped to the New World were enslaved by Africans and then sold to European traders
===========

Rebuttal:
THE 90% OF AFRICANS THAT WERE CAPTURED BY AFRICANS STATEMENT - IS AN ABSURD ESTIMATION, NOT AN ACTUAL FACTUAL ACCOUNT OF TRUE STATISTICS. AND SHOULDN'T BE APPLIED TO THE TRUTH.

In order for this to have happened, there would have been africans on every corner of Africa. There is no way of knowing, even an estimation number would proven to be way off .
===========================

IT'S AMAZING.... how a Professor of Harvard hasn't done the full research on the slave trade and Zhinga full story. Most people I find read half of the Truth - THEN RUN AWAY WITH IT. .... mind wrenching.

Gates also does the reparations discussion a serious disservice by reducing it to a "blame game." The fact that African slaves built America for free then in turned sold as Branded Cattle on WALL STREET.....This is not about blaming anyone, it's about "Reality"

Seek out the truth of Alkebulan (Africa) history for yourself. I kinda thank NY Times for highlighting Mr. Henry Louis Gates article because, it caused me to further investigate the truth.

I am under the assumption that by "ending the slavery blame game," Gates is arguing that we should stop blaming the U.S. government and white America for the rape, murder, castration, lynching and beating of our ancestors.

What Gates is revealing to us is nothing but a "smoke screen".

Monument to the Gate of No Return on the Slave Road at Ouidah. A slave who passed this point was not coming back.

======================

Monument marking the location of the Tree of Forgetfulness.

The belief was that if a male walked 9 times around the tree (or a female 7 times) then their memories were erased ready for their future as slaves.
============

Did Africans coined a TREE OF FORGETFULNESS and make Africans march around this tree, in hopes Africans would forget themselves and their history? NO

Did America enslave Africans for many (Hundreds) of years? Yes.

Even after the law to end slavery past, didn't parts of the South refused to cooperate?

This bronze shows how noisy slaves were trained to be silent.

This is what they want us to forget!
====

Did they profit from it? Yes.

Did they repay those they enslaved? No.

Also, tell me where was Pro. Gates comments when the Jews got reparations for slavery?
=========

Sankofa.....

In my opinion reparations can be in many forms, educational scholarships, paid training, etc... there are many avenue's we all can explore. Engaging solutions to our community needs.

================

Monument to the Tree of Return. Walking 3 times around this tree would bring the slave's spirit back to Africa after death.

==============

DO THE MATH!

Even responsibility of the slave trade, should NOT fall on Africans.

=====================

March 2, 1807

The U.S. Congress sought to end international slave trade by passing an act to make it unlawful “to import or bring into the United States or the territories thereof from any foreign kingdom, place, or country, any negro, mulatto, or person of colour, with intent to hold, sell, or dispose of such negro, mulatto, or person of colour, as a slave, or to be held to service or labour." Domestic traffic in slaves was still legal and unregulated.

SLAVE POSTER
==============

The first shipload of African captives to North America had arrived at Jamestown, Virginia, in August 1619, and the first American slave ship, named Desire, sailed from Marblehead, Massachusetts, in 1637. In total, nearly 15 million blacks were transported as slaves to the Americas. The African continent, meanwhile, lost approximately 50 million human beings to slavery and related deaths. Despite the federal prohibition and because the slave trade was so profitable, an additional 250,000 slaves would be imported illegally by the time the Civil War began.

===============

EM-HOTEP

SPIRIT of SANKOFA*

===============

BLACK WALL STREET - Little Africa 1921

2010-04-25T11:12:00.000-07:00

Many of Blacks that resides in the U.S., dont realize that there is so much history of Blacks conquest for Independence. A Conquest for Their Own Economy, A Thriving Community of Businesses.

As a whole on many levels developing and building a strong economy within their own little town. Only to have it attacked and burned to the ground. In hopes that the Black Community will never rise to that threshold, risen above racism, poverty again.

This story which is a True account in US history. Is one that should be a Memory in all our minds, and taken as a lesson to thrive and rise up again, like the Pheonix from the ashes.

What We as a people have to realize is..... in order to rise above flood waters, even in this day and time, we need an Economy of our own. Our brothers and sisters knew this. In order to be perfectly "Free" WE CAN NOT REMAIN Depended on others.

Even though the military and others were sent to wage war against this "Thriving Independent Black Commmunity"

JUST THINK OF WHAT THEY DID ACCOMPLISHED DISPITE THE ODDS. Dispite JELOUSY Hatred and STRIFE.......

I believe this is a solution to our problems.

Read and pass this on.......................

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Spirit Of Sankofa*

Em-Hotep
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The Date Was June 1, 1921, “BLACK WALLSTREET”

The name fittingly given to one of the most affluent All-BLACK Communities in America, was bombed from the air and Burned to the ground by mobs of envious Whites.

In a period spanning fewer than 12 hours, a once thriving Black Business District in northern Tulsa lay smoldering — a model Community destroyed and a major African-American economic movement resoundingly defused.

The Night’s Carnage left some 3,000 African Americans Dead and over 600 Successful Businesses Lost.

Among these were 21 Churches, 21 Restaurants, 30 Grocery Stores and 2 Movie Theaters, plus A Hospital, A Bank, a Post Office, Libraries, Schools, Law Offices, a half dozen Private Airplanes and even A Bus System.

As could have been expected, the impetus behind it all was the infamous Ku Klux Klan, working in consort with
Ranking City Officials and many other Sympathizers.

The best description of BLACK WALL STREET, or Little Africa as it was also known, would be to compare it to a mini – Berverly Hills.

It was the golden door of the BLACK Community during the early 1900’s, and it proved that African Americans
could create a successful infrastructure.

That’s What BLACK WALLSTREET, Was All About.

The Dollar circulated 36 to 100 Times, sometimes taking a year for currency to leave the Community.

Now a Dollar leaves the BLACK Community in 15-minutes.

As Far As Resources, there were Ph.D.’s residing in Little Africa, BLACK Attorneys and Doctors.

One Doctor was Dr. Berry who owned the Bus System. His average income was $500 a Day, a hefty pocket change in 1910.

It was a time when the entire State of Oklahoma had only 2 Airports, yet 6 BLACKS, Owned their own Planes.
It was a very Fascinating Community.

The mainstay of the Community was to educate every child.

Nepotism was the one word they Believed in. And that’s what we need to get back to.

The main thoroughfare was Greenwood Avenue, and it was intersected by Archer and Pine Streets.

From the First Letters in each of those Three Names you get G.A.P. And that’s where the renowned R&B Music
Group The GAP Band got its name. They’re From Tulsa.

BLACK WALLSTREET was a prime example of the typical, BLACK Community in America that did businesses, but it was in an unusual location.

You See, At The Time, Oklahoma was set aside to be a BLACK and Indian State.

There were over 28 BLACK Townships there. One third of the People who traveled in the terrifying “Trail of Tears” along side the Indians between 1830 and 1842 were BLACK People.

The Citizens of this proposed Indian and BLACK State chose A BLACK Governor, A Treasurer from Kansas named McDade.

But the Ku Klux Klan said that if he assumed Office they’d Kill Him within 48 hours. A lot of BLACKS owned Farmland, and many of them had gone into the Oil Business. The Community was so tight and Wealthy because they traded Dollars hand-to-hand, and because they were dependent upon one another as a result of the Jim Crow Laws.

It was not unusual that if a Resident’s Home accidentally Burned down, it could be rebuilt within a few weeks by Neighbors.

This was the type of scenario that was going on Day-to-Day on BLACK WALL STREET.

When BLACK’s intermarried into the Indian Culture, some of them received their promised ‘40 Acres and A Mule‘
and with that came whatever Oil was later found on the Properties.

On BLACK WALLSTREET, A lot of Global Business was conducted, The Community flourished from the Early 1900s until June 1, 1921.

That’s when the Largest Massacre of Nonmilitary Americans in the History of this Country took place, and it was lead by The KU KLUX KLAN.

Imagine walking out of your front door and seeing 1,500 Homes being Burned. It must have been amazing.

Survivors we interviewed think that the whole thing was planned because during the time that all of this was going on; White Families with their children stood around the borders of their Community and watched The Massacre.

The looting and everything — much in the same manner they would watch a Lynching. The Riots weren’t caused by anything Black or White. It was caused by jealousy. A lot of White Folks had come back from World War I and they were poor.

When they looked over into The BLACK Communities and realized that BLACK Men who Fought in The War had come Home as Heroes, and that helped to trigger the destruction.

It cost the BLACK Community everything, and not a single dime of restitution – No Insurance Claims – has been awarded the victims to this day. Nonetheless, they rebuilt.

We estimate 1,500 to 3,000 People were Killed and we know that a lot of them were Buried in Mass Graves all around the City. Some were thrown into the river.

As a matter of fact, at 21st Street and Yale Avenue, where there now stands a Sears Parking Lot, that corner used to be a Coal Mine. They threw a lot of the Bodies into the Shafts.

Beulah Smith and Kenny Booker, Two Elderly Oklahomans, lived through one of the Worst Race Riots in U.S. History, a rarely mentioned 1921 Tulsa Blood Bath that officially took Thousands of African-American Lives.

The Tulsa Race Riot Commission

Formed two years ago to determine exactly what happened, will consider next week the Controversial Issue of what, if any, Reparations should be paid to the Known Survivors of the Riot, a Group of less than 100 that includes Beulah Smith, now 92, and Kenny Booker, 86.

‘The Gun Went Off, The Riot Was On‘

On the Night of May 31,1921, mobs called for the Lynching of Dick Rowland, A Black Man who shined shoes, after hearing reports that on the previous Day He had Assaulted Sarah Page, A White Woman, in the elevator she operated in a downtown building.

A Local Newspaper, printed a Fabricated Story that Rowland tried to rape Page. In An Editorial, the same newspaper said a Hanging was Planned for that Night.

As Groups of both Blacks and Whites converged on the Tulsa Courthouse, a White Man in the Crowd Confronted an Armed Black Man, A War Veteran, who had joined with other Blacks to protect Rowland.

A Fabricated Newspaper Story Triggered The Violent Riots that left Hundreds, if not Thousands, Dead. Comm. Member Eddie Faye Gates told CNN what happened next. “This White Man,” she said, Asked The Black Man, “What Are You Doing With This Gun?”

“I’m going to use it if I have to,” the Black Man said, according to Gates, “and (the White Man) said, ‘No, you’re not. Give it to me,’ and he tried to take it. The gun went off, the White Man was Dead, The Riot Was On.”

Truckloads of Whites Set Fires and Shot Blacks on sight.

When the smoke lifted the Next Day, more than 1,400 Homes and Businesses in Tulsa ’s Greenwood District, a prosperous area known as the “Black Wall Street,” lay in ruins.

THE WHITEWASHING OF BLACK HISTORY IN TEXT BOOKS

2010-04-17T07:48:00.000-07:00

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Now that Black History Month has come to a close, it’s definitely not time to go into hibernation until next year. Black History is vital to the Black Community. If it wasn't it wouldn't be in the stage of being white washed more than it is now. It is time for Blacks to see the Importants of "Origins". ESPECIALLY THEIR OWN.

Right wingers in Texas omit minorities from textbooks. ...

Battles are in progress to erase the efforts that has been made, in educating our Children and Our People. Years of sincere efforts, by our studied Historians springing forth the awareness to "KNOW THY SELF"!. Try to visualize this!

Now there is a real threat that things may be in reverse mode. There is a concerted effort in Texas to drag the history books back about 50 years. And portrayals of slavery and the Civil Rights Movement are on the chopping block.

A detailed article by Mariah Blake in the Washington Monthly lays out how Christian conservatives have taken over the Texas State Board of Education board and are busily rewriting history.

Texas has an outsized impact on the rest of the country when it comes to textbooks because it's so big. Because of its huge purchasing capacity, publishers work to meet standards set by the Lone Star state’s board of education, then will sell those same books to everybody else for the next 10 years.

As the Washington Monthly reports:

While they concede that people like Martin Luther King Jr. deserve a place in history, they argue that they shouldn't’t be given credit for advancing the rights of minorities. As (one board member) put it, “Only majorities can expand political rights in America’s constitutional society.” Ergo, any rights people of color have were handed to them by whites—in his view, mostly white Republican men

Whether you are a parent or not have kids in public schools, the prospect of Texas conservatives determining what students across the country learn or more importantly, don't learn, is cause for concern.

Ask yourself--- Are American students taught enough about the role of Blacks in American history?

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The attempt on strickening Black History /whitewashing literature, can not extract Blacks from the BIBLE.
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Ham was one of Noah's three sons, Shem and Japhet were the other two. Noah's descendants repopulated the Earth after the Great Flood. Ham's descendants are traced to the families of Africa.

Ham (Khawm) in Hebrew means BLACK, HOT AND BURNT. Ham had four sons, CUSH (Ethiopians / Cushites), MIZRAIM (Egyptians / Khemet), PHUT (Ancient Libyans or Somalian), and CANAAN (Canaanite, the original inhabitants of the Land of Israel) Genesis 10:6-19.

All four of Ham's sons and their descendants settled in and around the Continent of Africa. This includes the so called "Middle East" that is also a part of the Continent of Africa.

Let us begin with the story of Jacob's second Youngest son Joseph, and his time in Egypt. Joseph was one of the twelve sons of Jacob (Yaaqob in Hebrew). Jacob sired Joseph in his old age, and he was clearly his favorite son. This caused Joseph's brothers to become jealous of him. Ultimately, their jealousy resulted in Joseph being sold by Arab merchants as a slave.

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Gen.10:8 Cush was the father of Nimrod, the first mighty warrior on the earth. 9 He was a mighty hunter whom the LORD blessed. (God’s Word Translation)
10 The first cities in his kingdom were Babylon, Erech, Accad, and Calneh in Shinar Babylonia. 11 He went from that land to Assyria and built Nineveh, Rehoboth Ir, Calah,

We know that Nimrod was the son of Cush. Babylon had two elements in her population in the beginning. The northern Accadians and the southern Sumerians were both Cushites. The finds of recent explorations in the Mesopotamian valley reveal that these ancient inhabitants were black, with the cranial formation of Ethiopians. The art, science and culture of the earlier unmixed Chaldeans was Cushite.

Rawlinson speaking in his Ancient Monarchies decided that the ruins of Chaldea show Cushite origin. The names of Chaldea and Ethiopia are linked in a way to render any other interpretation impossible. The great city of the earlier period was Niffer a corruption of Nimrod. The language of the ruins is radically different from the Semitic tongue of the Assyrian empire.

Over the course of time Joseph became Viceroy of Egypt and was second in command to Pharaoh in authority. There was a famine in Canaan, where Jacob and his sons lived. (Pharaoh had a dream which Joseph interpreted. His dream told of the forthcoming famine and gave Egypt an opportunity to prepare by storing food.) So, Jacob sent his ten sons to Egypt to buy bread. When Joseph's ten brothers came into Egypt they were brought before him. Joseph recognized his brothers, but they didn't recognize him (Genesis 42:1-8). Since the biblical Egyptians were a black-skinned people, Joseph had to be black-skinned also.

If he were white skinned, as over half the world's Jews are today, his brothers would have recognized him easily among the black- skinned Egyptians, or they would have been very curious as to why this white-skinned Hebrew was ruling in Egypt. But his brothers just thought Joseph was another Egyptian. The ancient Egyptians of Joseph time were indeed what we know today as black skinned. This is a fact attested to by many.

Gerald Massey, English writer and author of the book, Egypt the Light of the World wrote, "The dignity is so ancient that the insignia of the Pharaoh evidently belonged to the time when Egyptians wore nothing but the girdle of the Negro." (p 251) Sir Richard Francis Burton, a 19th century English explorer, writer and linguist in 1883 wrote to Gerald Massey, "You are quite right about the "AFRICAN" origin of the Egyptians. I have 100 human skulls to prove it." Scientist, R. T. Prittchett, states in his book The Natural History of Man, "In their complex and many of the complexions and in physical peculiarities the Egyptians were an "AFRICAN" race (p 124-125).

The Ancient Greek historian Herodotus, who visited Egypt in the 5th century B.C.E., saw the Egyptians face-to-face and described them as black-skinned with woolly hair.

Anthropologist, Count Constatin de Volney (1727-1820), spoke about the race of the Egyptians that produced the Pharaohs. He later paid tribute to Herodotus' discovery when he said: "The ancient Egyptians were true Negroes of the same type as all native born Africans.

That being so, we can see how their blood mixed for several centuries with that of the Romans and Greeks, must have lost the intensity of it's original color, while retaining none the less the imprint of its original mold. We can even state as a general principle that the face (referring to The Sphinx) is a kind of monument able, in many cases, to attest to or shed light on historical evidence on the origins of the people."

The fact that the ancient Egyptians were black-skinned prompted Volney to make the following statement: "What a subject for meditation, just think that the race of black men today our slaves and the object of our scorn, is the very race to which we owe our arts, science and even the use of our speech." The testimony of the ancients, the Bible, many Egyptologists, along with archaeology confirms that the Egyptians during biblical times were a BLACK-SKINNED PEOPLE.

This is important to know, as we continue, we will see that the bible on multiple occasions describes the ancient Hebrews as looking like the Egyptians. Next, in Genesis chapter 50 verses 7-11, scripture will describes ALL the Hebrews as looking like the ancient Egyptians. After Jacob (who's name was changed to Ysrayl - Israel) died in the Land of Egypt, all the Hebrews and Egyptians went down to the Land of Canaan to bury him (He asked his son to bury him in the Land of Canaan with his forefathers Genesis 49:29-30). Verses 7-8 state that all the elders of Pharaoh's house and all the elders of the Land of Egypt along with all the Hebrews (except for their small children) went down. VERSE 9 says,

"It was a very great company." VERSE 11 says, that the Canaanite saw the funeral procession and said "THIS IS A GRIEVOUS MOURNING TO THE EGYPTIANS". But remember this was a mixed multitude of Hebrews and Egyptians going to bury a HEBREW, and the Canaanite identified them both as Egyptians. WHY? Because the Canaanites saw a great company of black-skinned people who were all probably dressed according to the customs and fashions of Egypt, and they all looked liked native (black) Egyptians.

If the Hebrews were a white-skinned people, as we have been led to believe, the Canaanite who were familiar with both the Hebrews and Egyptians would have acknowledged them both by saying, "THIS IS A GRIEVOUS MOURNING TO THE EGYPTIANS AND HEBREWS." The scripture goes on to say that the Canaanite named the place where they saw this great mourning for a HEBREW Abel Mizraim which means the meadow of Egypt/Mizraim or Mourning of the Egyptians. Now let's go to the most famous story, of the Hebrews sojourn in Egypt, which would be the story of Moses.

Many years after the death of Joseph, His brothers and all that generation that entered Egypt during the time he was viceroy. The Hebrew population in Egypt grew tremendously. Because of this, they were no longer looked upon as friendly neighbors.

Pharaoh decreed that all Hebrew males are killed at birth (Exodus 1), this brings us directly to the story of Moses. Moses was born a Hebrew - Israelite from the tribe of Levi (Exodus 2:1-3). He spent 40 years in the House of Pharaoh (Acts 7:23) and from the time he was an infant, passed as the Pharaoh's grandson (Exodus 2: 6, 10). This was during the same time that Pharaoh ordered all Hebrew males under the age of two to be killed. So, if Pharaoh, was a black-skinned descendant of Khawm / Ham, which he was, it would of course follow that Moses was black-skinned also.

Many Scholars say the Pharaoh who was on the throne of Egypt at the time of Moses' birth, was Pharaoh Seti I. He was the father of Rameses II, the Pharaoh of the oppression, also known as Rameses the Great. George Rawlinson, an English author wrote a book entitled History of Egypt. On page 252, he gives a description of Seti I. He states: "SETI'S FACE WAS THOROUGHLY AFRICAN. HE HAD A STORMY FACE WITH A DEPRESSED FLAT NOSE, THICK LIPS AND HEAVY CHIN.”

Moses had to have the same physical characteristics because again, he was raised in the house of Pharaoh, as the grandson of Pharaoh, when Pharaoh ordered all other Hebrew males to be killed at birth. If the Israelites were a white-skinned people, how could Moses the Hebrew survive (secretly) in the house of Pharaoh among black-skinned Egyptians for 40 years, and not be noticed.

Furthermore, after giving the decree (himself) to kill all Hebrew males, how could Pharaoh face and rule over his people, if he knowingly had one living in his house with all the rights and privileges of his own family? Moses survived 40 years in the palace of Pharaoh because he was a black-skinned man just as the Egyptians were. Just as the Canaanite couldn't tell the Hebrews from the Egyptians. Pharaoh couldn't either, or Moses would have been killed instantly.

These forces cannot write Blacks out of history, we just need to learn more Ourselves and treat it like it is OUR LOST TREASURES!

EM-HOTEP
LETS LEARN EVEN MORE!

Why study the history of Mathematics in Africa S. of the Sahara?

2010-04-16T13:58:00.000-07:00

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Why study the history of mathematics in Africa south of the Sahara?

There are many reasons which make the general study of the history of mathematics both necessary and attractive (see e.g. Struik, 1980). There exist important additional reasons which make the research on the history of mathematics in Africa south of the Sahara indispensable.
African countries face the problem of low 'levels' of attainment in mathematics education. Math anxiety is widespread. Many children (and teachers too?) experience mathematics as a rather strange and useless subject, imported from outside Africa. One of the causes thereof is that the goals, contents and methods of mathematics education are not or not sufficiently adapted to the cultures and needs of the African peoples, as stresses the first Secretary-General of the AMU Commission for Mathematical Instruction (Eshiwani, 1979, 346; cf. Eshiwani, 1983; Jacobsen, 1984). Today's existing African educational system is "unadapted and elitist" and "favours foreign consumption without generating a culture that is both compatible with the original civilization and truly promising" (Ki-Zerbo, 1990, 4; cf. El-Tom on mathematics education and the selection of élites, 1984, 3).

The delegates to the Vth Conference of Ministers of Education and those Responsible for Economic Planning in African Member States declared that educational policy should be designed to "restore to their rightful status the African cultural heritage and the traditional social and human values that hold potential for the future " (MINEDAF,1982, 41). The mathematical heritage of the peoples of Africa has to be valued and African mathematical traditions should be 'embedded' into the curriculum (Cf.e.g. Ale, 1989; Doumbia, 1984, 1989b, Gerdes, 1985a, 1986a, 1986b, 1988d, 1990c; Langdon, 1989, 1990; Mmari, 1978; Njock, 1985; Shirley, 1986a, 1986b). And as this scientific legacy of Africa south of the Sahara is little known, research in this area constitutes a challenge to which an urgent response is necessary (Njock, 1985, 4). Also African-Americans and minorities of African descent all over the world feel the need to know their cultural-mathematical heritage (Campbell, 1977; Frankenstein & Powell, 1989; Zaslavsky, 1973, etc.; Ratteray, 1991). More generally, both in highly industrialised and in Third World countries it is becoming more and more recognised that it is necessary to multi-culturalise the mathematics curriculum in order to improve its quality, to augment the cultural confidence of all pupils and to combat racial and cultural prejudice (cf. e.g. D'Ambrosio, 1985a; Ascher, 1984; Bishop, 1988a, b; Joseph, 1987; Mellin-Olsen, 1986; NCTM, 1984; Nebres, 1983; Zaslavsky, 1989a, 1991).

Broad conception of 'history' and 'mathematics'

Most histories of mathematics devote only a few pages to Ancient Egypt and to northern Africa during the 'Middle Ages´. Generally they ignore the history of mathematics in Africa south of the Sahara and give the impression that this history either did not exist or, at least, is not knowable / traceable, or, stronger still, that there was no mathematics at all south of the Sahara (cf. Lumpkin, 1983; Njock, 1985). "Even the Africanity of Egyptian mathematics is often denied" (Shirley, 1986b, 2). Prejudice and narrow conceptions of both 'history' (cf. Ki-Zerbo, 1980, General Introduction) and of 'mathematics' form the basis of such (eurocentric) views (cf. Joseph, 1987, 1991).

At the 17th International Congress of Historical Sciences, Humphrey (1990, 4) stressed that "Any narrow definition of science in modern terms would make it difficult for us to understand its origins and the variable forms it has taken in different cultures". In the case of mathematics, authors like Ale, D'Ambrosio, Ascher & Ascher, Bishop, Doumbia, Gerdes, Njock, Shirley and Zaslavsky consider 'mathematics' as a pan-cultural phenomenon and propose a broad conception, including counting, locating, measuring, designing, playing, explaining, classifying, sorting...

Pioneer study

Zaslavsky's ' Africa Counts ' is a pioneer work in the area of the history of mathematics south of the Sahara. She offers her book as "a preliminary survey of a vast field awaiting investigation" (1973a, vi). Her task was not an easy one: in face of "the inadequacy of easily accessible material... ", she had to search "the literature of many disciplines - history, economics, ethnology, anthropology, archaeology, linguistics, art and oral tradition - ..." (1973a, vi).
She used a broad perspective on mathematics; her study deals with, what she calls, the 'sociomathematics' of Africa: she considers "the applications of mathematics in the lives of African people, and, conversely, the influence that African institutions had upon the evolution of mathematics" (1973a, 7). The concept of sociomathematics may be considered a forerunner of the concept of ethnomathematics. It is ethnomathematics as a discipline that studies mathematics (and mathematical education) as embedded in their cultural context - the (development of) different forms of mathematical thinking which are proper to cultural groups, like ethnic, professional, and age groups.

For the (possible) relationships between ethnomathematics and the history of mathematics, see (in general) D'Ambrosio (1985b) and (in the case of Africa) Shirley (1986b) and Gerdes (1990e).
The application of historical and ethnomathematical research methods has contributed, as will be shown, to the knowledge and understanding of the history of mathematics in Africa, or, at least, of some further mathematical elements in African traditions, in addition to the information gathered in ' Africa Counts '.

The beginnings

Zaslavsky presented as early evidence for (proto-)mathematical activity in Africa a bone dated at 9000-6500 B.C., dug up at Ishango (Zaire). The bone has what appear to be tallying marks on it, notches carved in groups. The bone's discoverer, De Heinzelin, interpreted the patterns of notches as an "arithmetical game of some sort, devised by a people who had a number system based on 10 as well as a knowledge of duplication and of prime numbers". Marshack, on the contrary, explains the bone as early lunar phase count. Their views, summarized in (Zaslavsky, 1973a, 17-19), are reproduced recently in (Fauvel & Gray, 1987, 5-7). Later, the dating of the Ishango bone has been reevaluated, from about 8000 B.C. to 20,000 B.C. (Marshack, 1991). Zaslavsky (1991b) raises the question "who but a woman keeping track of her cycles would need a lunar calendar?" and concludes that "women were undoubtedly the first mathematicians!".

Bogoshi, Naidoo & Webb report in 1987 on a still much older "mathematical artefact": "A small piece of the fibula of a baboon, marked with 29 clearly defined notches, may rank as the oldest mathematical artefact known. Discovered in the early seventies during an excavation of Border Cave in the Lebombo Mountains between South Africa and Swaziland, the bone has been dated to approximately 35000 B.C.". They note that the bone "resembles calendar sticks still in use today by Bushmen clans in Namibia" (1987, 294).
A research project looking for numerical representations in San (Bushmen) rock art has recently been started by Martinson (University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa). From the surviving San hunters in Botswana - "the oldest pattern of life found in the world today..." - , Lea and her students at the University of Botswana have collected information. Her papers describe counting, measurement, time reckoning, classification, tracking and some mathematical ideas in San technology and craft. The San developed very good visual discrimination and visual memory as needed for survival in the harsh environment of the Kalahari desert (Lea, 1987, 1989, 1990a, 1990b).

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The middle and upper reaches of the Niger River have played an important role in West African history. This area in Western Sudan was a base for the camel caravan routes crossing the Sahara to the Mediterranean, while a black nation is reputed to have existed there from around the 3rd or 4th centuries A.C.
The Mali Empire flourished in the 13th century, with the city of Timbuktu on the banks of the Niger River as an intellectual, artistic and religious center. The Songhai Empire reigned in the 15th century, followed notably by the Bambara Kingdom in the 17th and 18th centuries. From the latter half of the 16th century, Mali experienced a period under Moroccan control in its north party.
In the 19th century the French army advanced into the region, making Mali a part of French West Africa from 1898 to 1960. Mali became an autonomous republic within the French Community in 1958, formed the Mali Federation with Senegal in April 1959, and gained independence in its own right on September 22, 1960.

SCIENCE CONTRIBUTIONS FROM BLACK AMERICANS

2010-04-01T09:20:00.000-07:00

Black Scientist

The contributions of blacks in the field of science have been a missing chapter in the narrative of America’s scientific and technological advancement. From the beginning, African Americans were part of America’s scientific endeavors: Benjamin Banneker produced the blueprint for Washington DC; Norbert Rillieau, chemical engineer, revolutionized the sugar industry by building a refining system; Elijah McCoy whose name became synonymous with high-quality (The Real McCoy) patented more than fifty inventions used by the railroad companies; Grandville T. Woods, invented the trolley car system and helped invent the light bulb, telegraph and telephone systems; Lewis Latimer produced the drawing for the telephone and wrote the world’s first book on electric lighting; Jan Matzeliger, revolutionized the shoe industry with the invention of the shoe lasting machine, and Garrett Morgan invented the gas mask and traffic signal. The conditions under which blacks created and invented helps to better appreciate the contributions of African American to science and the advancement of America.

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Understanding the properties of substances or matter and how to make practical use of them is the essence of chemistry, whether the study takes place in a formal laboratory or not. The effectiveness of folk medicines used for centuries by traditional Africans and African-American practitioners throughout the world is recognized today.

Even before they were exposed to western science and medicine, many African cultures used natural versions of aspirin, kaolin (an effective cure for diarrhea), and herbal treatments for skin infections. African doctors had discovered effective herbal remedies for several diseases; the Zulu alone had found medicinal application from over 700 plants. African captives brought their scientific knowledge with them to America, and during the slavery period, several emerged as proficient in healing and medicine.

The abolition of slavery allowed African-Americans to begin earning mainstream respect for their work in the laboratories of modern science. In the late 19th century, George Washington Carver emerged as a pioneer in agricultural research. He found dozens of uses for chemicals he extracted from peanuts and potatoes. His research led to the development of hundreds of products, including ink, shampoo, and peanut butter. He later became a vocal supporter of growing peanuts as a source of protein. During the 29th century, several African-American chemists have made important offerings in physical, organic, nuclear, and analytical chemistry.

Lloyd A. Hall, president of the Griffith Chemical Company, discovered important food preservatives. Percy L. Julian developed a way to remove and prepare soybean products as cortisone, to treat arthritis, and an extract used in the treatment of glaucoma. Julian registered more than 130 chemical patents during the course of his career.

Dr. Jane Wright

Other African-American chemist includes Jane Wright, (shown) former director of the Cancer Research Foundation, who formulated mithramycin, a drug that has proved promising in fighting cancer. William A. Lester Jr., a theoretical chemist who did research on the troubles of high-velocity molecular collisions, was chosen to manage the National Resource for Computation in Chemistry. James A. Harris helped to discover Rutherfordium (atomic number 104) and Hafnium (atomic number 105).

Since 1916, when St. Elmo Brady became the first African-American to earn a Ph.D. in chemistry, Blacks have played an increasingly important role in laboratories and lecture halls. Current data indicates that African-Americans comprise nearly 4 percent of Ph.D. students in chemistry.

From George W. Carver,
to Ralph G. Gardner, to Dr. Shirley Jackson, to Mark Dean the number of Black chemists and scientist is increasing.

Nzinga Queen Of Mbundu

2010-03-14T07:10:00.000-07:00

In African history there are very few women who have shaken the very foundations of not only their homeland, but other African countries and Europe itself. Queen Nzinga was one of these few, remarkable women.

Queen Nzinga (1583-1663)

Nzinga Meeting with Portuguese Governor Joao Corria de Sousa, 1622 Queen Nzinga (Nzinga Mbande), the monarch of the Mbundu people, was a resilient leader who fought against the Portuguese and their expanding slave trade in Central Africa.

During the late 16th Century, the French and the English threatened the Portuguese near monopoly on the sources of slaves along the West African coast, forcing it to seek new areas for exploitation. By 1580 they had already established a trading relationship with Afonso I in the nearby Kongo Kingdom. They then turned to Angola, south of the Kongo.

The Portuguese established a fort and settlement at Luanda in 1617, encroaching on Mbundu land. In 1622 they invited Ngola (King) Mbande to attend a peace conference there to end the hostilities with the Mbundu. Mbande sent his sister, Nzinga, to represent him in a meeting with Portuguese Governor Joao Corria de Sousa. Nzinga was aware of her diplomatically awkward position. She knew of events in the Kongo which had led to Portuguese domination of the nominally independent nation. She also recognized, however, that to refuse to trade with the Portuguese would remove a potential ally and the major source of guns for her own state.

In the first of a series of meetings Nzinga sought to establish her equality with the representative of the Portugal crown. Noting that the only chair in the room belonged to Governor Corria, she immediately motioned to one of her assistants who fell on her hands and knees and served as a chair for Nzinga for the rest of the meeting.

Despite that display, Nzinga made accommodations with the Portuguese. She converted to Christianity and adopted the name Dona Anna de Souza. She was baptized in honor of the governor's wife who also became her godmother. Shortly afterwards Nzinga urged a reluctant Ngola Mbande to order the conversion of his people to Christianity.

In 1626 Nzinga became Queen of the Mbundu when her brother committed suicide in the face of rising Portuguese demands for slave trade concessions. Nzinga, however, refused to allow them to control her nation. In 1627, after forming alliances with former rival states, she led her army against the Portuguese, initiating a thirty year war against them. She exploited European rivalry by forging an alliance with the Dutch who had conquered Luanda in 1641. With their help, Nzinga defeated a Portuguese army in 1647. When the Dutch were in turn defeated by the Portuguese the following year and withdrew from Central Africa, Nzinga continued her struggle against the Portuguese. Now in her 60s she still personally led troops in battle. She also orchestrated guerilla attacks on the Portuguese which would continue long after her death and inspire the ultimately successful 20th Century armed resistance against the Portuguese that resulted in independent Angola in 1975.

Despite repeated attempts by the Portuguese and their allies to capture or kill Queen Nzinga, she died peacefully in her eighties on December 17, 1663.

The Black Headed People of China: Li Min- Zhou Dynast

2009-04-17T05:06:00.000-07:00

AfroCentric Cultural Sankofa writes......

This is a very interesting study, on the origins of Blacks in ancient China. The evidence shows, that Black Afrikans who founded the civilization in China were Li-Min "Black Headed People" - by the Zhou dynast- Babylonion called them. Sag-Gig- Ga "bhp".
One of the lengendary chinese emperors Fu- Hsi (son of heaven) was a wooley hair black man who originated in the oracle of the I Ching- or the book of change.
Also be aware of the true origins of martial arts, karate, kick boxing and wrestling originated from. And it's not where we have been lead to believe.

Imhotep also had wall carvings illustrated in his tomb displaying wrestling holds any many other fighting technics. This clearly is proof how far back Kemetic arts goes.
Original people of India were Afrikan. The latin word India comes from the greek word (Indus) which means black.
Afrikans Ethiopians called Dravidians (Afro-Australoids) founded Indus Valley Civilization 3000 yrs B.C. Restoring spiritual sciences that originated in afrika.- yoga, kun dalini and reflexology.
Hero Di-Yuhai - chinese medicine uses the logic of ancient Egyptians (Kemetic) who view the universal process. Where there is no boundaries between ; rest-motion, time-space, mind-matter, sickness and health.
Chinese view reality as a unified field or interwoven pattern of inseperable links to a circular chain called Tao. Whick all emotion , events in nature, sound and climate and energy flows.

After reading, hopefully you can come to a agreement that..... Afrikans are the blueprint and all others are a mere variation of the originals. Thus we are all linked by this connection. It's simple........we are All a product of.....

"AfroCentric Culture By Design".
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BLACK CHINESE DYNASTIES

A recent international study carried out by Shanghai scientists and international academics has confirmed that the Chinese did not originate from Peking Man in northern China, but from Black East Afrikans who migrated through South Asia to China some 100,000 years ago.

The people of that era practiced the Afrikan ritual of single burials, and the skeletal remains from Southern China clearly shown them to be Negroid.

Jin Li of Fudan University in Shanghai along with an international research team comprised of Russians, Indians, Brazilians and researchers from other nations, have found that modern humans evolved from a single Afrikan origin as opposed to the multiple origins theory still accepted by some experts. These findings therefore challenge the theory held that different groups of humans evolved separately at the same time in diverse locations around the world.

School textbooks in China have been teaching that the Chinese race evolved from Peking Man , but Shanghai scientists and international researchers have dismissed this theory after discovering that early human families evolved in East Afrika some 150,000 years ago. This claim is based on the DNA analyses of 100,000 samples collected from around the world, which prove that the 65 branches of the Chinese race share similar DNA mutations with the people of East and Southeast Asia, and have originated in Afrika. Micro-satellites or bits of DNA which are short, repeating pieces of DNA that provide information about the genetic variation among people were examined, and they revealed that all Chinese have a great deal in common genetically.

This recent research nullifies the theory that Peking Man was the ancestor of the Chinese people and also dispels the Chinese myth and beliefs once held by modern Chinese scholars that the Chinese race had descended from the Yellow Emperor, and evolved separately from other the races.

These findings also add more weight to the Afrikan concept that all human life began in Black Afrika from one race, which was the original and aboriginal Black Afrikan race from the tropical regions of Afrika, in particular the Omo region of Ethiopia. Archaeology and forensic tests confirm that China's first two important dynasties, the Xia and the Shang/ Chang, were Black Afrikan, with an Australoid type known as the Madras Indian present in smaller percentages.

The Black Afrikan race is therefore the only original and pure race that exists today; all other so-called races are mere variations of this original Negritic race. Besides, the appearance of other races is a recent occurrence in world history, taking place after the migrations of Blacks from Afrika into Europe and Asia, some 40,000 to 50,000 years ago.

These Black, original, oriental people of China were known in historical literature as Negro, Austroloid or Oceanean by the Europeans, however, not a single shred of evidence concerning the thousands of years of Black occupation in China can be found in any Chinese Museum, - except for a few Chinese documents which report that some major kingdoms there were ruled by Blacks until around 1000-700 BC.
However, these facts are recorded in the Afrikan, East Indian and Black-American history books.

Africoid people from Kush in Afrika began entering China and Central Asia via Iran while other groups reached China by sea. This two migration route of Blacks to China led to the development of the southern Chinese branches of Africoids called Yi, li-man Yueh and Man , while the northern Chinese branches of Africoids were called Kui-shuang (Kushana) or Yueh-chih . Blacks also lived in Turkestand, Mongolia, Transoxiana, the Ili region and Xinjiang Province, in addition to the Yueh Tribes along the north east coastal region.

By the way Afrika has the tallest and shortest people in the world, and the so-called Asian or slanted eye is a trait which came from the Afrikans. This facial type is typical Negritic, with the eyes that seem to slant , representing a common, racial characteristic generally found in West Africa, the Sahara and in South Africa among the Kong-San Bushmen (right) and other Africans.
The Kong-San people are one of the most ancient pure Afrikan groups on earth. The features of the Kong-san (left) include Mongoloid eyes , high cheekbones, small stature, very kinky hair and brown to yellow-brown complexion, but, these Kong-sans and a number of groups in Southern Africa with similar features have not mixed with Asians of any other race, but remain pure African Blacks.

The earliest occupants of Asia were described as small Black pygmies , and Chinese historians also described the Fou Nanese people of China as small and Black . The Ainus , Japan's oldest known inhabitants traditionally refer to a race of Black dwarfs who inhabited Japan long before they did. The Ainus people originated in Black Egypt and are recorded as having made large migrations to the Asian continent, taking with them thousands of years of Afrikan-Egyptian knowledge and influence.

These migrations would explain the existence of man-made pyramids in China and Japan which were built by Afrikans of the Nile Valley, of which the Chinese have no idea as to how they got there. China's pyramids are located near Siang Fu city in the Shensi province. The Japanese pyramids were built during the time of Mu, were made of stones not indigenous to Japan and are often mistaken for hills because of their eroded appearances.

The three major empires (first civilizations) of China were the Xia Dynasty (c.2205-1766 B.C), the Shang/ Yin Dynasty founded by the Yi tribe headed by the Afrikan-Mongolian King T'ang, or Ta (c.1700-1050 B.C), and the Zhou Dynasty , the first dynasty founded by the Mongoloid people in China called Hua (pronounced Who-aa) .

The founders of Xia and Shang came from Afrika via Iran, and according to Prof. Shun-sheng Ling , the earliest documented ruler ship of China known as the Xia and Shang dynasties, were governed by emperors called Xuan Di or Black Emperors , who introduced farming and writing to China. Under their leadership, trade cities and travel developed, and by 3500 B.C., Blacks in China were raising silkworms to make silk.

The fundamental structures of a stylish calligraphy which is still present today was perfected by the Chinese under this Black dynasty, but in addition to writing, the Blacks of the Xia and Shang dynasties introduced bronze working to China and invented the pounded earth architecture associated with early Chinese city-states.

These Black Afrikans also took the art of fighting known today as the martial arts, (Tai Chi, Kung fu, Judo and Tae Kwon Do and so on), developed in the Horn of Afrika into China. (This is a picture of Teguai, the Black martial artist , from china's golden period around 1000 A.D.)
In other words, the martial arts originated in AFRIKA, not Asia, and it was the ancient Kemetics (Black Egyptians) who discovered very early that the movements of animals could be used effectively to develop their fighting skills . They also incorporated the concept that "animal principles" could be isolated within the consciousness and manifested into an unconquerable fighting force.

Inside the tomb of Imhotep are stone wall carvings of warrior scientists displaying a number of wrestling holds, kicking, throwing, punching and other fighting techniques . Also inscribed in the Tombs of many Kemetic (Egyptian) Governors who lived 4,200 years ago, are diagrams of more than 500 pairs of wrestlers and other warriors demonstrating weapons usage including the lance and short sticks. This diagram shows a section of the wrestling and martial arts moves that were sketched into an ancient Egyptian tomb wall of Governors at Mahez or Beni Hasan , some 2800 years before the birth of Christ.

This type of wrestling was copied and practiced by the ancient Greeks and is still practiced in Nubia and West Africa today. These carvings constitute the ancient records and laid the foundation of the world's first martial arts system. Furthermore, these Black Egyptians had developed an understanding of the vital energy of the soul called chi in Chinese, ki in Japanese and ka in the netjer writing of ancient Kemet.

The martial arts practice presently recognized as Chinese started around 500 CE under the influence of a Black Dravidian and Buddhist Priest from India, named Bodhidharma . Also known as Dharuma in the Japanese archives, Bodhidharma founded Zen Buddhism in China and taught the monks at the Shaolin Temple a set of exercises, movements, and breathing techniques which became known as the Shaolin ch'uan fa, temple boxing , or the 18 Hands of Lo Han , which formed the foundation of Chinese Shaolin Kung-fu and Japanese Karate.

Afrikans on the continent still practice their own ancient martial arts styles, and continued practicing even when enslaved in the Western Hemisphere. This tradition continues to thrive in the Black Brazilian martial arts style called Capoeira . “A Samurai, to be brave, must have a little Black blood" .

The first Chinese emperor, the legendary Fu-Hsi , (Son of Heaven) 2953-2838 B.C., was a woolly haired Black man who is said to have originated the oracle of the I Ching, or The Book of Change, which is the oldest most revered system of prophecy and known to have influenced the most eminent philosophers of Chinese medicine and thought.

Ancient Chinese medicine dates back to the Shang Dynasty founded by the Afrikan King T'ang around 1500-1000 B.C. The Shang (Chiang) and the Chou dynasties were credited with bringing together the elements of Chinese medical concepts. The Shang was given the name of Nakhi. Na means Black, Khi means man .

Many of the great principles of Chinese medical science compiled during the Shang period were later developed during the Han Dynasty (168 B.C. to 8 A.D.), which began to fuse Shang medical concepts with views from the philosophical ideas of Confucius (551-479 B.C.). In this way a system was produced which explained all phenomena in relation to the whole, and under this system, everything including the human body and the organs were organized within the system of "Yin" and "Yang," and the "five elements", or what is also known as the five phases theory.

Buy the latest electronic gadgets from China at wholesale prices. DigiCams, Mobile phones, Surveillance equipment,etc.
Chinese medicine uses the logic of the Ancient Egyptians who viewed the universe as process-oriented where no boundaries between rest and motion, time and space, mind and matter, sickness and health exist. The Chinese looked at reality as a unified field or an interwoven pattern of inseparable links in a circular chain called the Tao, from which all things and events in nature such as the seasons, colour, sound, organs, tissue, emotion, climate, matter and energy flowed.

The culture hero Huang Di , whose name was pronounced in old Chinese as Yuhai Huandi or Hu Nak Kunte , shows a link directly out of Afrika. He arrived in China from the west around 2282 BC, and settled along the banks of the Loh River in Shanxi. This transliteration of Huan Di, to Hu Nak Kunte should be of interest to Black people who should recognise that Kunte is a common clan name among the Manding speakers.

These Black Afrikans who founded civilization in China were often called Li Min "Black headed people" by the Zhou dynasts, which is similar to the Sumero-Akkadian / Babylonian term Sag- Gig-Ga also meaning "Black headed people."

Currently, Blacks are very rare in China because of the genocide of blending the races, which may be a racist tool applied there and throughout the world to eliminate the Black skin. (Add a cup of milk to jet Black coffee and see if you can still identify the Blackness.)

This is exactly what took place in Argentina, a nation which had more Blacks than whites during the 1700's, and it also occurred in Mexico and most parts of Latin America, where the Blacks are still severely oppressed. In sections of North Afrika, the Middle East and Southern Europe, the genocide of mixing was successful in eliminating all the Black populations from these regions except in India, where the racist caste system preserved the purest of India's original Black Negros to this day. These include the Black Dalit or Untouchables (Negro-Australoids) who were kept segregated and isolated for thousands of years by the Indo-European invaders who migrated from Central Asia/North-Eastern Europe.

The original or first people of India were also Black Afrikans , in fact, the Latin word India comes from the Greek word Indus (Indos) which means Black . These Black Afrikans, many of whom came from Ethiopia and called Dravidians (afro-Australoids) , founded the great Indus Valley Civilization around 3000 B.C., bringing many spiritual sciences that originated in Afrika like Yoga, Kundalini and Reflexology with them.

Also, being masters of urban planning and architecture, their homes and cities had running water, toilets, and an underground sewage system as seen at the Mohenjo Daro ruins around 2000 B.C. It is also believed that the Ganges, the sacred river of India, was named after an Ethiopian king by that name who conquered Asia up to this river. Buddha , Krishna , (two of the world's best known Black deities outside of the western world) , the great King Asoka and other great Black sages emerged from these successive civilizations.

But in the western world nothing is mentioned that India was once a part of the great Black Ethiopian Empire , but this is verified in the Ethiopian sacred text known as The Kebra Negast which regarded West India as a part of the Ethiopian or Kushite Empire. In biblical times, Afrika included much of what European maps refer to as the Middle East, but it was the European mapmakers who determined that regions on the top of Afrika should be divided, based on distances from Europe to the Near East, Middle East and Far East . The name Afrika was imposed on this great continent by European explorers who have this knack for renaming and degrading everything they come across to suit themselves.

A replica of an ancient Chinese map which included a recognizable outline of Afrika was made public in November 2002 in South Afrika's Parliament. This Map of the Great Ming Empire Da Ming Hun Yi Tu which dates back to 1389, was created decades before the first European voyages to Afrika , but this presents another problem, as European scientists could not explain how the Chinese possessed such a map that was dated decades before Europeans had sailed to Afrika.

The normal response when something surfaces in an area that cannot be linked back to Europe, their scientists will come up with some statement like, "We have our team of experts working on that."

This is a carefully constructed drawback which suggests that everything documented in history is supposed to be measured to and from Europe, - a baby civilization.

http://members.tripod.com/jrmoore1958/chinese.html

The Wisdom Texts: Quotes from Ptahotep

2009-04-15T05:30:00.000-07:00

Spirit of Sankofa writes........

The more I research the more I learn to honor and respect Egyptian (Kemetic) knowledge. Their unique thought process, their teaching and instruction of many situations concerning political and social matters. Engaging the development of the mind as well as social behavior.Their exquisite wisdom, knowledge as well as the study of the spiritual man.

Here are some words of wisdom (words to live by) , in my opinion even in this time. Wisdom from one of the Govenors and Vizer Ptahotep of ancient Egypt. Here he instructs his son on how to treat different situation of human behavior and good conduct. It is a look into the life and ways that were taught through the eyes of wisdom.

Know Thyself*
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Per-Ankh -
House of Life
************
The Wisdom Texts:

Quotes from the Instructions of Ptahotep
Source: 'The Literature of Ancient Egypt' edited by William Kelly Simpson, New Haven and London, Yale University Press, 1973.

These quotes are used here to give the reader a taste of the popular 'instruction texts' from ancient Egypt, in which advises for good conduct and happy and prosperous living were taught. This is perhaps the most well-known of them but also one of the most difficult one to understand. It dates from the early Middle Kingdom and its earliest manuscript exists on the Prisse Papyrus in Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris.

~~~
In his old age the City Governor and Vizier Ptahotep instructs his son:

1. Do no be arrogant because of your knowledge, but confer with the ignorant man as with the learned, for the limit of skills has not been attained, and there is no craftsman who has (fully) acquired his mastery. /Good speech is more hidden than malachite, yet it is found in the possession of women slaves at the millstones.

2. If you find a disputant arguing, one having authority and superior to you, bend down your arms and bow your back; if you disagree with him, he will not side with you. You should make little of the evil speaking by not opposing him in his argument; it means that he will be dubbed an ignoramus when your self-control has matched his prolixity.

3. If you find a disputant arguing, your equal who is on your level, let your virtue be manifest against him in silence when he is speaking ill; great will be the talk on the part of the hearers, and your name will be fair in the opinion of the magistrates.

4./If you find a disputant arguing, a humble man who is not your equal, o not be aggressive against him in proportion as he is humble; let him alone, that he may confute himself. Do not question him in order to relieve your feelings, do not vent yourself against your opponent, for wretched is he who would destroy him who is poor of understanding; men will do what you whish, and you will defeat him by the disapproval of the magistrates.

5. If you are a leader, controlling the destiny of the masses, seek out every good thing, until there is no fault in your governance, /Truth is great, and (its) effectiveness endures; it has not been confounded since the time of Wesir....

6.Do not inspire terror in men, for God also is repelled....

11. Follow your desire as long as you live and do not perform more than is ordered; do not lessen the time of following desire, for the wasting of time is an abomination to the spirit; do not use up / the daytime more than is (neccessary) for the maintenance of your household. When riches are gained, follow desire, for riches will not profit if one is sluggish.

14....As for him whose heart obeys his belly, he puts dislike of himself / in the place of love; his heart is sad and his body unanointed. Joyous are the hearts of those whom God has given, but he who obeys his belly has an enemy.

23. / Do not repeat slander; you should not hear it, for it is the result of hot temper. Repeat (only) a matter seen, not what is heard.

25... One who is serious all day will never have a good time, while one who is frivolous all day will never establish a household.

Read also the words of Amenemope ,

and the words of Anksheshonq

This site is for educational purposes only.

Ancient Kemetic Wall Paintings

2009-04-12T03:45:00.000-07:00

Spirit of Sankofa writes......

Kemet's creativity in Art goes back many years. They would paint in caves, stone, rock, among other things....furniture and temples.
What is really amazing to me is, all this beautiful work that depicted life in Egypt was left as a symbol, evidence of it's existance. As well as the type of people it represented..
There is a link at the end of this pg., click and see the beauty of black in in the form of art painting.
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Short History of Egyptian Wall Paintings ~
From Tombs and Temples

Egyptian Painting was the necesssary complement to engraving, a means of making it more expressive and evocative, of endowing the work with magical life. All Egyptian ancient art was coloured . The ordinary people of ancient Egypt painted poor quality wood, pottery or stone; the "great" people commissioned funeral effigies with polychrome effects and iridescent reliefs for their tombs; kings had their burial chambers decorated with remarkable paintings in which they figured alongside the gods and spirits; The walls of the Temples were embellished throughout with gold leaf and painted reliefs; the hieroglyphs on the obelisks were studded with lapislazuli. Furniture too was inlaid or painted. To earthly life and to etnernal life colour was as vital as any other element able to confer existence and mortality.

There were important and strict injunctions to such sacred painting. For instance, women's skin is always painted light or pinkish yellow whereas men skin is red ochre. The only exception was the goddess Hathor who according to the law, had a skin as dark as one of a man.

Backgrounds are white and less freguently yellow. The only break with tradition was in the Amarna period and the years immediatly preceding and following that era of rapid evolution.

Picture 1

From the tomb of Seti I, in the Valley of Kings. Isis is streching out her wings in a protective gesture. XIXth Dynasty.

It took the form of a search for new colours, a freedom in the expression of movement and versimilitude in the representation of forms which had never been attainded before. Even then however, the artist remained bound by the artistic conventions established " in the time of the Gods ".

page 1 of 5

http://www.papyrus-museum.com/history_egyptian_wall_painting.htm

Click link for photos

Black History Time Capsule: Dr. Percey L. Julian

2009-04-11T09:20:00.000-07:00

Spirit of Sankofa writes.....

There are so many of our people that are within the scope of "Voices of Triumph". This brother most definately was a pioneer of chemical synthesis of drugs in medicine. These are the type of examples, these powerful images, that inspire positive re-inforcement in our communities all over the world.

This is a "Black History Time Capsule"
Spot-Light-Event.
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April 11

Dr. Percy Lavon Julian was born on this date in 1899. This African American research chemist was a pioneer in the chemical synthesis of drugs used in medicine.
Born in Montgomery, Alabama, the grandson of a former slave, Julian had limited schooling because Montgomery provided no public education for Blacks after the eighth grade. He entered DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana, as a 'sub-freshman' and, though ill-prepared, graduated in 1920 as class valedictorian with Phi Beta Kappa honors. He received a M.S. degree from Harvard three years later and a Ph.D. degree from the University of Vienna in 1931.
Dr. Julian taught chemistry at several universities and conducted research for private industries for many years before founding his own research firm, Julian Laboratories, Inc., in 1953. His first major scientific contribution, in 1935, was the synthesis of physostigmine, the drug used in the treatment of glaucoma.
He also worked on biomedical projects, developing steroids from the soybean and synthesizing progesterone (female hormone), testosterone (male hormone), and cortisone. His work made possible the production of these drugs in large quantities, reducing the cost of treating hormonal deficiencies, arthritis, and other disorders.
Later in his career, Julian developed a soybean protein to be used as a coating for paper and as an ingredient in fire-extinguisher foam. In 1947 the NAACP awarded him its highest honor, the Spingarn medal. Dr. Julian was also elected to the National Academy of Sciences. In 1964, he founded Julian Associates and Julian Research Institute, which he managed for the rest of his life.
Reference:

African Americans/Voices of Triumph
by Dr. Henry Louis Gates Jr.
Copyright 1993, TimeLife Inc.
to become a doctor

http://www.aaregistry.com/detail.php?id=138

Race and Antiquity:Truly Out Of Africa*

2009-04-05T15:46:00.000-07:00

Race in Antiquity: Truly Out of Africa

By Molefi Kete Asante

Africa's influence on ancient Greece, the oldest European civilization, was profound and significant in art, architecture, astronomy, medicine, geometry, mathematics, law, politics, and religion. Yet there has been a furious campaign to discredit African influence and to claim a miraculous birth for Western civilization. A number of books and articles by white and some black conservatives seek to disprove the Egyptian influence on Greece.

One of the most recent works in this genre is a book by Wellesley professor Mary Lefkowitz, Not Out of Africa. It continues what Martin Bernal calls in Black Athena the Aryanist tradition of attacking African agency in regard to Greece by raising strawpeople arguments and then knocking them over. This is unfortunate but to be expected by an intellectual tradition that supports the dominant mythologies of race in the history of the West by diverting attention to marginal issues in the public domain.

Afrocentricity seeks to discover African agency in every situation. Who are we? What did we do? Where did we travel? What is our role in geometry? How do we as a people function in this or that contemporary situation? But the Afrocentrist does not advance African particularity as universal. This is its essential difference from Eurocentricity which is advanced in the United States and other places as if the particular experiences of Europeans is universal. This imposition is ethnocentric and often racist. Afrocentricity advances the view that it is possible for a pluralism of cultures to exist without hierarchy but this demands cultural equality and respect.

Mary Lefkowitz' book has sought to re-assert the idea that Greece did not receive substantial contributions from Kemet, the original name of Egypt, which is the Greek name for the ancient land. Professor Lefkowitz has offered the public a pablum history which ignores or distorts the substantial evidence of African influence on Greece in the ancient writings of Aetius, Strabo, Plato, Homer, Herodotus, Diogenes, Plutarch, and Diodorus Siculus. A reader of Lefkowitz' book must decide if she or he is going to believe those who wrote during the period or someone who writes today. History teaches us that a person is more likely to distort an event the farther away from it she happens to be. If you have a choice, go with the people who saw the ancient Egyptians and wrote about what they saw.

Conservative white columnists have felt a tremendous need to respond in the most vigorous fashion with their applause to shore up their racial mythologies. And now George Will ( Newsweek , February 12, 1996) and Roger Kimball ( Wall Street Journal , February 14, 1996) have seen fit to bless Professor Mary Lefkowitz' Not Out of Africa as a sort of definitive moment in intellectual history. It is no such moment. It is a racial argument clearly fast back-stepping. As is too often the case these days, however, Lefkowitz received the go-ahead to attack Afrocentricity by writing this book of blacks such as Anthony Appiah and Henry Gates. They have, of course, had a real problem with the Afrocentric idea.

What this indicates is that we have gone full circle from the Hegelian "Let us forget Africa" to a late 20th century attack on African scholarship by declaring, in the face of the evidence, that major influences on Greece were not out of Africa. And as such it will simply confirm the inability of some scholars to get beyond the imposition of their particularism of Europe. No one can remove the gifts of Europe nor should that ever be the aim of scholarship but Greece cannot impose itself as some universal culture that developed full-blown out of nothing, without the foundations it received from Africa.

The aim of Professor Lefkowitz is to support the unsupportable idea of a miraculous Greece and thus to enhance a white supremacist myth of the ancient world. Perhaps George Will and Roger Kimball believe that that they have found a savior of the pure white thesis. They are wrong. The thesis cannot be supported with facts although Professor Lefkowitz goes to great length to confuse the picture by concentrating on irrelevancies.

Professor Mary Lefkowitz' work pales besides the research done by Cornell professor Martin Bernal, Black Athena, the late Cheikh Anta Diop, author of Civilization or Barbarism , and Temple professor Theophile Obenga, author of the important La Philosophie Africaine de la période Pharonique, ( African Philosophy in the Age of the Pharoahs) or the forthcoming work by Professor Maulana Karenga on ancient Egyptian ethics.

The press fanfare granted Not out of Africa, however, does demonstrate how noise can be confused with music. But what is more worrisome is that it demonstrates a glee, although misinformed, of those who feel some sense of relief that a white scholar has taken on the Afrocentrists, a kind of white hope idea. This stems, as I believe George Will has shown in his essay on the subject, from what is viewed as white salvation from the irrationality of Afrocentrists. It originates in an historical anti-African bias and Roger Kimball nearly gloated that readers would "savor" Lefkowitz' "definitive dissection of Afrocentrism." Contrary to any definitive dissection of Afrocentrism what Professor Lefkowitz offered was a definitive exposure of the principal assumptions of a racial structure of classical knowledge.

Professor Lefkowitz is conversant with many Greek sources but as she admits this is the first time that she has ventured into these waters. This is unfortunate because she has created a false security among those who believe that Greece sprung like a miracle unborn and untaught. Bringing Frank Snowden in the discussion of the ancient world does not help because Professor Snowden's book Blacks in Antiquity: Ethiopians in the Graeco-Roman Experience is fatally flawed as a Eurocentric interpretation of the African past. His objective was to demonstrate that Africans existed in the imaginations and experience of Greece and Rome. He succeeded in stripping all agency from Africans. The problem is that Ethiopia in the form of Nubia and Kemet (Egypt) existed thousands of years before there was a Greece or Rome. To start a discussion of the ancient world with 800 B.C is certainly poor scholarship. But Professor Lefkowitz reliance on Snowden is the least of her problems.

The book is badly written and terribly redundant as if she is in a hurry to enlarge a relatively poor argument. How many times can you really say that George G. M. James should not have used the term "stolen legacy" when he claimed that the Africans influenced the Greeks? Professor James certainly had just as much rhetorical justification as Professor Lefkowitz who chose the unsubtle title "Not Out of Africa" probably for the same reason as Professor James called his book Stolen Legacy.

Ruling classes always seek to promote and to maintain their ruling mythologies. Professor Lefkowitz' passion in trying to walk a tight rope between support of the false mythology of a Greek miracle and the facts of Egyptian influence on the early Greeks is telling. She seeks to minimize the role Egypt played in civilizing Greece by claiming that only in art and architecture was there real influence. This flies in the face of the ancient observers and beneficiaries of the largesse of the Africans.

Mary Lefkowitz's Not Out of Africa , has demonstrated the tremendous power of a false idea especially when it is advanced in the halls of the Academy. I have come to believe that it is a part of a larger falsification that encompasses the various right-wing ideologies that parade as truth. They are rooted in the same dogma: reason is the gift of the Greeks. The Greeks are Europeans, Europeans are white, white people gave the world reason and philosophy. This is not only a bad idea it is a false idea. It is a bad idea because it preaches a European triumphalism and it is a false idea because the historical record is contrary. Tragically the idea that Europeans have some different intellectual or scientific ability is accepted doctrine and some scholars will go to any length to try to uphold it. Usually, as Lefkowitz does, they commit four fundamental flaws:

They attack insignificant or trivial issues to obscure the main points.

Professor Lefkowitz has three main axes to grind in her book. The first is that a student told her that she believed Socrates was black. The second is that the Greek gods came from Africa which she attributes to Martin Bernal, the author of Black Athena , and to Cheikh Anta Diop, the author of The African Origin of Civilization . The third is that freemasonry is the source of George James' claim in his book Stolen Legacy that the Greeks got many of their major ideas from the Egyptians.

The main point made by Afrocentrists is that Greece owes a substantial debt to Egypt and that Egypt was anterior to Greece and should be considered a major contributor to our current knowledge. I think I can say without a doubt that Afrocentrists do not spend time arguing that either Socrates or Cleopatra were black. I have never seen these ideas written by an Afrocentrist nor have I heard them discussed in any Afrocentric intellectual forums. Professor Lefkowitz provides us with a hearsay incident which she probably reports accurately. It is not an Afrocentric argument.

I believe that both Bernal and Diop have done admirable jobs making their own cases on the legendary origins of the Greeks and I believe that readers should go to the sources themselves to see whose case, theirs or Professor Lefkowitz', is most plausible. I am convinced from my reading that the relationship between ancient Greece and Africa was closer and more familiar than Greece's relationship to Northern Europe.

They will make assertion and offer their own interpretations as evidence.

Professor Lefkowitz makes a statement on page 1 of her book that "In American universities today not everyone knows what extreme Afrocentists are doing in their classrooms. Or even if they do know, they choose not to ask questions." We are off to a bad start. Who are these extreme Afrocentrists? She does not provide us with one example of something that an extreme Afrocentrist is teaching in a classroom. Not one. But already the reader is inclined to believe that something exists where nothing exists. No matter how passionate, assertion is not evidence. What Afrocentrists do teach is that you cannot begin the discussion of world history with the Greeks. Creating clouds of suspicion about scholarly colleagues in order to support a racial mythology developed over the past centuries to accompany European enslavement of Africans, imperialism, and exploitation will not dissipate the fact of Greece's debt to Africa.

They will undermine writers they previously supported in order to maintain the fiction of a Greek miracle.

Professor Lefkowitz and others who once considered Herodotus to be the Father of History now find fault with Herodotus because as Afrocentrists read Book Two of Histories we find that Herodotus glorifies the achievements of Egypt in relationship to Greece. But Herodotus is not the only ancient Greek writer to be dismissed by classicists who accept what Bernal rightly calls an Aryan interpretation of the ancient world.

Aristotle reported that the Egyptians gave the world the study of geometry and mathematics and the Aryanists argue that Aristotle made mistakes in what he observed. Professor Lefkowitz carries the denial of the ancient Greeks to a new level saying essentially that you cannot trust Homer, Diogenes Laertius, Plutarch, or Strabo. Her position is that Strabo, like Herodotus, depended too much on what the Egyptian priests told him. Every Greek who wrote on the overwhelming impact of Egypt(Africa) on Greece (Europe) is discredited or set up to be discredited by the Aryanists. The idea to abandon the Greek authors rests on the belief that these ancient Greek writers cannot be counted upon to support the theories of white supremacy.

They will announce both sides of an issue are correct, then move to uphold only the side that supports European triumphalism .

Professor Lefkowitz could have admitted that Egypt during the times of the Pharaohs, whatever interpretation you have of that ancient society, for example, as ornamented with Mystery Schools or simply filled with keepers of mysteries at the temples of Ipet sut, Edfu, Kom Ombo, Philae, Esna, Abydos, and other cities, was the source of much of Greek knowledge. Rather she claims that the only real impact of Egypt on Greece was in art and architecture. This is to state an obvious fact in order to obscure the deeper influences in science, astronomy, geometry, literature, religion, mathematics, law, government, music, medicine, and philosophy.

Professor Lefkowitz' major points are not only flawed but her reasoning is faulty and cannot be sustained by any inquiry into the Greek or Egyptian languages or into ancient history. She wonders why the Afrocentric perspective is plausible to so many intelligent people. Clearly it is plausible to intelligent people because they do not believe that there was some unique brand of intelligence that struck the Greeks and created a Greek miracle willy-nilly without contact with the civilized world. In most cases knowledge builds upon knowledge. In the case of the ancient Greeks they tell us that they built upon the Egyptians. Should we believe them or should we believe the modern Aryanist interpreters who want to dismiss the ancient Greek observers?

What are the substantial arguments advance by Afrocentrists, not the hearsay comments of a student or some rhetorical repartee between public debaters? What Afrocentrists articulate (see Asante, Kemet, Afrocentricity and Knowledge . Trenton: Africa World Press, 1990; Theophile Obenga, A Lost Tradition: African Philosophy in World History, Philadelphia: Source, 1995) is that the Greeks were students of the Egyptians. Readers should see the works of Yosef Ben-Jochannon and George G. M. James for themselves rather than rely on the misinterpretations and distortions of others.

On these facts we stand:

*Ancient Egyptians were black people.

*Egyptian civilization precedes Greece by several thousand years

*The pyramids are completed (2500 BC) long before Homer appears (800 BC)

*Philosophy originates in Africa and the first Greek philosophers (Thales, Isocrates) studied in Egypt

* A discussion of the wise, wisdom, (sb) appears on tomb of Antef in 2052 BC

*Thales of Miletus is not a philosopher until 600 BC

Among Greek historians and others who wrote about what the Greeks learned from Egypt are Homer, Herodotus, Iamblicus, Aetius, Diodorous Siculus, Diogenes Laertius, Plutarch, and Plato. Who were some of the Greek students of Africans, according to the ancient records? They were Plato, Solon, Lycurgus, Democritus, Anaxamander, Anaxagoras, Herodotus, Homer, Thales, Pythagoras, Eudoxus, and Isocrates and many others. Some of these students even wrote of their studies in Egypt as well.

There are many other points that are debatable in Lefkowitz' book but I do not have space to discuss all of them in this essay. However, I do want to point out that she is also wrong on the issue of Alexandria. The City of Alexandria built in honor of Alexander of Macedonia was not a new city, the Greeks simply expanded an existing city and changed its name. The ancient Egyptian city of Rhacôtis, which probably had an even older name, was the original African city upon which Alexandria was built much like Kinshasa under the Belgians was expanded and changed to Leopoldville. Triumphalism has a way of insinuating itself into everything and then claiming that it is original.

In the end I have asked myself, what is Professor Lefkowitz' point, why does she see the need to challenge Bernal, James, Diop, or to question my integrity? She states very clearly that her project is about sustaining the American myth of European triumphalism. In her own words:

"Any attempt to question the authenticity of ancient Greek civilization is of direct concern even to people who ordinarily have little interest in the remote past. Since the founding of this country, ancient Greece has been intimately connected with the ideals of American democracy."

No one could have given a better reason than that for Professor Lefkowitz' spirited but misguided attempt to defend a falsification of history in the name of attacking Afrocentricity. When all is said and done a more perfect union of this nation can only be based on facts.

Myths, Legends, Beliefs And Traditions Stories of Africa

2009-04-01T06:48:00.000-07:00

- Gallery

A Web Gallery of Contemporary East and South African Paintings

Myths, legends, beliefs and tradional stories from Africa

Earth
Jok - concept of the devine
Kikuyu
Elephant
Majimaji
Destiny (Yoruba)
Afterlife
The queen of Ethiopia
Liongo
Suk
Trees
Sunbirds
Malaika
to be continued ...

Africa - for us still the unknown continent possesses a several thousands of years old culture. Expressed particularly in myths, legends, fables, in songs and proverbs.
On this page you will find traditional African stories woven around a pantheon of gods and mythical figures but also legends, fables and more general subjects that played a part in African mythology and African life.

Earth

Many African peoples regard the earth as a female deity, a mother-goddess who rules all people and is the mother of all creatures. The earth lives and gives birth to ever new generations of beings. She will make the grass grow when heaven gives her rain and if there is no rain, she withdraws into her own depths, waiting for better times to come. Many regions of Africa have to endure a dry season when nothing grows and death reigns. As soon as the new rains, life begins miraculously. Grass sprouts, flowers open and the frogs croak, creeping out of the earth who hid them. Thus the earth conceals life, protects it against desiccation and revives it as soon as better times arrive. Without the gifts of the earth no one lives. Many African peoples believe that the ancestors live in the earth, in houses very similar to the ones they had here, on the surface of the earth. They also own cattle and goats there. Indeed there is a Zulu myth in which people go in search of the milk-lake under the earth, from where the milk is absorbed by the grassroots so that the cows and goats have milk from the earth. Where else could the milk come from? Our own flesh is earth; even the name Adam means 'earth'. All creatures are earth. Fire too, lives in the earth, which sometimes spits it out when in anger. Fire comes out of wood, so it, too, must come from the earth. Wind too, it is believed, comes out of caves in the earth. Thus all four elements come out of the earth. Yet, the earth is seldom worshipped; the libations which are poured down during numerous ceremonies are more addressed to the ancestors than to the earth as a whole. Nevertheless, the earth has a very powerful spirit which rules over our life and death. Sometimes, when she is perturbed, she moves, forests and mountains and all. Unlike man, the animals understand their mother and obey her, although sometimes she will have to punish a disobedient creature.

Jok - concept of the devine

Jok (Nilotic: Kenya, Uganda, Sudan). Jok is one of the most truly African concepts of the divine. It is a word, found with variations in all the Nilotic languages, as Jwok, Juok, Joagh, Joghi or Joogi. lt is not always translated with the same English word, because the dictionary writers had different philosophical ideas themselves, which demonstrates the power of the spirit that we call Jok. Jok is God and the spirits, the gods, the holy ghost, the beings from the other world. It can be vague and precise, good or frightening, beneficent or dangerous, one or a multitude, legion.
If a missionary had chosen the word Jok to denote God in his Bible translation, he would defend the notion that the Nilotes knew the One God. If he had taken another word to mean God, then he might use Jok to mean the 'spirits', or 'gods', or 'devils', thereby embarrassing those missionaries of another denomination who had used Jok to mean 'God'. This might be the origin of the confusion over Jok. This word incorporates all the contradictory ideas of the spiritual beings which in the minds of Europeans must be kept carefully separated. Jok is the unified spirit of God and the gods, personal and impersonal, local and omnipresent.

Kikuyu

The Kikuyus are a large tribe. The speak a beautiful Bantu language and have lived on the slopes of Mount Kenya and surrounding districts for a vew long time. The first Kikuyu was called Kikuyu and lived in a village called Kikuyu, which is still there. The word kuyu means 'a fig', and kikuyu is a fig-tree, a fertility symbol in Africa as well as in Asia. Kikuyu had nine daughters, who became the ancestral mothers of the nine major clans of the Kikuyu nation. The Kikuyu word for God is Ngai , which means the Apportioner. Thus during creation, God apportioned his gifts to all the nations of the earth. To the Kikuyus he gave the knowledge of, and the tools for, agriculture, at which the Kikuyus have always excelled. God controls the rain and the thunder, with which he punishes evildoers when necessary. Every person has a spirit, ngoma , which after death becomes a ghost. The ngoma of a murdered man will pursue his murderer until the latter has to come out of hiding and give himself up to the police, which is better than being haunted by a vengeful, persistent spirit. Burial rituals for the elders are executed meticulously, because their spirits are feared; the spirits of lesser members of society are less dangerous. Certain trees are inhabited by spirits which may have to be propitiated with food offerings.
Like Jupiter, Ngai punishes those who do not keep their oath sworn in his name, by striking them with lightning. It seems that the people also believed that a man's character was decided by God, so that his life, too, was predestined. The Kikuyus have a strong feeling of propriety; they will abstain from whatever they feel is untoward. During the 1920s there was a prophet, Thiga wa Wairumbi , who received direct messages from God for his people.

Elephant

Numerous myths are told in Africa about its biggest animal, the elephant, whose very size makes it unassailable in nature, except by man, who has weapons and magic to kill it. In the African fables the elephant is always the wise chief who impartially settles disputes among the forest creatures. A hunter in Chad found an elephant skin near Lake Chad and hid it. Soon he saw a lovely big girl crying, because she had lost her good 'clothes'. The hunter promised her new clothes and married her. They had many big children, for the son of an elephant cannot be a dwarf. One bad day when the grainstore was empty, his wife found the elephant skin at the bottom, where the hunter had hidden it. She put it on and went back to the bush to live as an elephant again. Her sons became the ancestors of the clan whose totem was the elephant. They do not have to fear elephants.
A myth of the Kamba in Kenya tells us how elephants originated. A very poor man heard of lvonya-Ngia, 'He that feeds the Poor'. He decided to go and find Ivonya-Ngia but it was a long journey. When he finally arrived, he saw uncounted cattle and sheep, and there, amidst green pastures, was the mansion of Ivonya-Ngia, who received the poor man kindly, perceived his need and ordered his men to give him a hundred sheep and a hundred cows. 'No', said the poor man, 'I want no charity, I want the secret of how to become rich.' Ivonya-Ngia reflected for a while, then took a flask of ointment and gave it to the poor man, saying: 'Rub this on your wife's pointed teeth in her upper jaw, wait until they have grown, then sell them.' The poor man carried out the strange instructions, promising his wife that they would become very rich. After some weeks, the canine teeth began to grow and when they had grown into tusks as long as his arm the man persuaded his wife to let him pull them out. He took them to the market and sold them for a flock of goats. After a few weeks the wife's canine teeth had grown again, becoming even longer than the previous pair, but she would not let her husband touch them. Not only her teeth, but her whole body became bigger and heavier, her skin thick and grey. At last she burst out of the door and walked into the forest, where she lived from then on. She gave birth to her son there, who was also an elephant. From time to time her husband visited her in the forest, but she would not be persuaded to come back, although she did have more healthy children, all elephants. It was the origin of elephants and it explains why elephants are as intelligent as people.
In Southern Africa there is told the tale of the girl who grew up so tall and fat that no man wanted her as a wife because she was accused of witchcraft. She was exiled from her village and wandered into the wilderness on her own. There she met an elephant who began speaking to her politely in good Zulu. She agreed to stay with him and he helped her to find wild cucumbers and other fruits of the forest. She gave birth to four human sons, all very tall and strong, who became the ancestors of the Indhlovu clan of paramount chiefs.
In the African fables, the elephant is usually described as too kind and noble, so that he feels pity even for a wicked character and is badly deceived. The Wachaga in Tanzania relate that the elephant was once a human being but was cheated out of all his limbs except his right arm, which now serves as his trunk. He paid for nobility!
The Ashanti of Ghana relate that an elephant is a human chief from the past. When they find a dead elephant in the forest, they give him a proper chief's burial.

Majimaji

In July 1905, rebellion broke out in the area south of Dar es Salaam (Tanzania), against the newly instituted recruitment for compulsory work on the German cotton and sisal plantations . The senior German officer in command, Major Johannes, set out from Dar es Salaam and on 5 August captured Mohoro, where he arrested the two men who were locally regarded as the instigators of the rebellion. They were Zauberer, sorcerers, of the Ikemba tribe and one of them who was known as Bokero, had been selling to his fellow Africans a maji (this word can mean water, sap, juice, any body liquid or vegetable extract) which, he claimed, had been given him by the Snake God to whom he referred as Koleo. (The word koleo literally means 'a pair of tongs', suggesting that this serpent was a python, well known for squeezing its victims to death; the worship of the python is widespread in Africa). Bokero, whose real name was Kinjikitire Ngwale, came from Ngarambi Ruhingo in the Rufiji Valley. He was well known for his magic powers, particularly for his ability to raise the spirits of the dead so that a man could see his own ancestors. Bokero and his colleague were hanged by the Germans. Bokero's last words were that it did not matter, for his dawa had already spread to other parts of the country and with it the spirit of independence. This dawa, the famous maji, was composed of water, matama (sorghum) and perhaps other millet as well as roots and various secret ingredients. It could be sprinkled over a man, or carried on his chest on a string round his neck, in a bottle made from bamboo, or it could be drunk as medicine. In whatever way it was taken, the man who had taken it was supposedly immune to German bullets: they would become muddy, majimaji ( Matschi Matschi ) , before hitting his body, and be harmless. Some women also took it, notably the Jumbess Mkomanira. The rebellion affected almost a quarter of the country and lasted for two years, until the summer of 1907, when the Jumbess Mkomanira was captured and hanged. Over a hundred thousand people died in the war, most of them from starvation. A Swahili poet, Abdul Karim Bin Jamaliddini, wrote an epic on the Majimaji rebellion in Lindi, in which we see the rebellion as a justified rising against the oppressors. It was published in Berlin in 1933, with a translation.

Destiny (Yoruba)

The Yoruba (Nigeria) believe that the success or failure of a man in live depends on the choices he made in heaven before he was born. If a person suddenly becomes rich, they will say that he chose the right future for himself, therefore poor people must be patient because even if they have chosen the right life, it may not have arrived yet. We all need patience. The word ayanmo means 'choice', and kadara means 'divine share for a man'; ipin means 'predestined lot'.
The Yoruba believe that there is a god, Ori, who supervises people's choices in heaven. Literally, ori means 'head' or 'mind', because that is what one chooses before birth. If someone chooses a wise head, i.e. intelligence, wisdom, he will walk easily through life, but if someone chooses a fool's head, he will never succeed anywhere. Ori could be considered as a personal god, a sort of guardian angel who will accompany each of us for life, once chosen. Even the gods have their Ori which directs their personal lives. Both men and gods must consult their sacred divination palm-nuts daily in order to learn what their Ori wishes. In this way, Ori is both an individual and a collective concept, a personal spirit directing each individual's life, and also a god in heaven, who is feared even by Orunmila.
In heaven, there is a curious character called Ajala, a very fallible man whose daily work is fashioning faces (ori) from clay. Sometimes he forgets to bake them properly, so they cannot withstand the long journey to earth prior to the beginning of life; especially in the rainy season the clay might be washed away and there would be a total loss of face!

Afterlife

All traditional African peoples agree that the soul of an individual lives on after death. Some people distinguish more than one spiritual essence living within one person, the life-soul or biospirit which disappears at the moment of definitive death, and the thought-soul which keeps his individual identity even after it is separated from the body. The life-soul can, according to some peoples in Africa and Asia, be separated during a person's life, in times of danger, and be kept hidden in a safe place, so that its owner can be harmed, mortally wounded even, but not killed, as long as his life-soul is safe. When the danger is past, the life-soul can be restored to the body and the person is hale and hearty again. The thought-soul lives on after death, but not for ever, it may gradually die and be forgotten. Souls of little children who died young, those of weak minds and insignificant persons will fade away after some years lingering.
If, however, an individual had a strong personality, a rich and famous man, a mother of many children, a chief, someone who was loved or admired, that soul will live on for many generations. Evil souls, too, may have a long afterlife: witches, sorcerers, the souls with a grudge, who have a score to settle, will wait for their revenge and haunt the living for years.
The oldest concept of the place where the dead continue their existence is the forest. The impenetrable depth of the great forests of Africa is the heartland of the spirits and of all magical beings. Where there are steep rocks, the dead reside in deep, dark caves, where their souls flutter about disguised as bats. Below the surface of rivers and lakes is the habitat of many souls. Many others linger on near the graveyards where they were buried. The good souls of the loved ones who have died, the wise parents' souls still accompany their living children and grandchildren.
The Yoruba (Nigeria) believe that each person has at least three spiritual beings. Firstly there is the spirit, emi, literally 'breath', which resides in the lungs and heart and is fed by the wind through the nostrils, just as the fire is fed through the twin openings in the blacksmith's bellows. This emi is the vital force which makes a man live, that is, breathe, rise up, walk, be aware, be active, work, speak, see, hear and make love. There is also the shadow or shade, ojiji, which follows its owner like a dog. When he dies, it awaits his return in heaven. The third is the eleda 'spirit' or ori 'head', also translated as 'guardian soul'; from time to time it has to be 'fed' by sacrifices. At death these spiritual aspects of a person leave the body and wait for him or her in heaven. An individual is expected to return to his clan as a newborn baby. Babatunde, 'Father returns' is a name which is given to a child when it resembles his father's father; Yetunde 'Mother returns' for a girl. Physical resemblances determine the identity of the baby. Before death, the emi-spirit may visit relatives, clan-members who will thus learn in a dream that their kinsman or -woman is going to die soon. Even in daytime, the cold presence of a dying relative may be felt from far away, as if he were close by. The ghosts of those who died in mid-life may go and live in distant towns and assume a quasi-physical existence there. A man who died early in life might even marry, his wife would not even know that her husband was dead already, a mere ghost. When the final hour arrives, the man dies a second time. After death the guardian soul arrives in heaven and confesses to the Supreme God Olorun what it has done on earth. The good souls will then be sent to the Good Heaven, Orun Rere. The souls of the wicked, those who are guilty of theft, murder or cruelty, poisoning, witchcraft or slander, will be sent to Orun Buburu, the Bad Heaven, as punishment.

The Queen of Ethiopia

In the days of King Solomon, three thousand years ago, there lived in Ethiopia a dynasty of queens, who reigned with great wisdom. One queen, the Malika Habashiya or Abyssinian Queen of old legends, had a dream in which she held a kid in her lap. On waking up she found herself pregnant and in due course she gave birth to a baby daughter. But alas! The child had one goat's foot. When the queen died, Princess Goat's Foot succeeded her, since she had no other children. One day she heard of King Solomon and his great wisdom, so she wrote him a letter announcing her arrival at his court. She was hoping that his great knowledge might enable him to cure her foot but she did not mention that. The King, however, always knew in advance what was going to happen, so, in front of his new palace he had a large pool dug, so that all his visitors had to rinse their feet before arriving. When the Queen of Abyssinia arrived, she had to raise her skirt before wading through the pond, so that the King could see her legs, one normal and one caprine. In the pond was a piece of ironwood which was placed there on the King's orders. When the Queen's cloven foot hit it, she was cured. When she stepped out of the water, she noticed that she had two human feet. She was now a very attractive woman and Solomon fell in love with her. She wanted to go home, having achieved her purpose, but Solomon persuaded her to stay. He proposed marriage, but she refused. However, Solomon knew the answer to that too. He gave some orders to his servants and an hour later the cook served a very spicy meal. That night the Queen felt very thirsty but there was no water in the palace. The pond had been drained and the servants told her that only the King had water, so she had to go and beg Solomon for water in his bedroom.
There is a version of the tale which says that she had agreed to marry King Solomon only if she took something vital from him. She therefore stole into his bedroom like a thief, hoping to find water without waking him. However, Solomon was wide awake like every man in love. As she was drinking from his water jar, she felt his hand holding hers in the dark, while the King's voice asked: 'Is water not vital, my dear Queen?' She had to agree to marry him there and then, but the next day she insisted on going home. Solomon gave her a ring, saying: 'When you have a son, send him to me when he is grown up, and I will give him half my kingdom.' The Queen of Ethiopia took the ring and travelled back by boat along the Red Sea.
In due course she gave birth to a son whom she called David, after his father's father. When he came of age, his mother sent him to King Solomon, with numerous presents. When David entered Solomon's court, he noticed an empty chair next to the King's and sat down on it. Solomon asked him: 'What have you come for, handsome young man?' He replied: 'I am David of Ethiopia I have come to ask you for half of your kingdom, and here is the ring which you gave my mother.' Solomon embraced him when he recognized his ring, and spoke: 'So be it. I will give you Africa, which is half my kingdom.' According to the legend, the King was in his right to do so for God had given him the whole world as his realm. No one knew at that time how big Africa really was.

Liongo

Mythical hero of the Swahili and Pokomo peoples of eastern Kenya. Historians have endeavoured to place Liongo in the chronology of the history of the Kenya Coast, as early as 1200 or as late as 1600. A large number of Swahili poems are attributed to Liongo, many of them popular wedding songs which are still performed at weddings, accompanied by special dancing, the so-called gungu dances, after the rhythm. Even the myth of Liongo is fragmentary and not a coherent story. Liongo was born in one of seven towns on the Kenya Coast which all claim the honour of being the great poet's cradle. He was exceptionally strong and as tall as a giant. He could not be wounded by any weapon, but when a needle was thrust into his navel, he would die; fortunately only he and his mother, whose name was Mbwasho, knew this. Liongo was King of Ozi and Ungwana in the Tana Delta, and of Shanga on Faza (Pate Island). He was passed over for the succession to the throne of Pate, which went to his cousin Ahmad (Hemedi), probably its first Islamic ruler. It seems that the advent of Islam caused the changeover from matrilinear to patrilinear succession. King (Sultan) Ahmad tried to get rid of Liongo and had him chained and gaoled. By means of a long and self-laudatory song, the refrain of which was sung by the crowds outside the prison, Liongo caused enough noise to file through his shackles without being heard by the guards. As soon as they saw him unchained, they fled, for he was a formidable man. He escaped to the mainland, where he lived with the Watwa, the forest-dwellers. Each episode of this saga is marked with a song, which has been preserved. He learned to perfect his sureness of hand with bow and arrow, so that he later won an archery contest organised by the king to entrap him, and escaped again. Little is known about Liongo's successful battles against the Galla (Wagala), whose king decided to offer him his own daughter in marriage so as to tie the hero to his own family. With her Liongo had a son who later betrayed and killed his father.

Suk (Western Kenya)

The Suk once had a great reputation as fierce warriors, beating even the dreaded Maasai-Samburu in c. 1850. The Suk are the first branch of the Kalenjin family of tribes to leave their original homeland of Mount Elgon's slopes. Originally only hunters, the Suk now herd cattle in Kerio Valley, living in peace with their neighbours if they can.
They believe in God, whom they call Tororut, offering him animal sacrifices. God's son is called Ilat; he has to fetch water for his father in Heaven. When he spills it, it rains on earth (ilat means 'rain'). Tororut's blessing must be invoked at least once a year for the crops and the cattle. An ox is selected by the priest, tusin, to be slaughtered; he rubs its blood on the chests of the participants, all men. In times of drought, famine or epidemic, similar rituals are necessary, to propitiate God. Personal illness is blamed on Oi, the spirit of disease, who may be expelled by emptying the sick man's house, after which the priest casts the evil spirit out, since it has nothing left to lurk behind inside. Tororut has a wife, the Pleiades, and a brother, Asis, the Sun-god. Tororut's wife Seta has three children, Ilat, 'Rai', Arawa, 'Moon', and Topoh, the 'Evening Star'. The appearance of the Pleiades marks the beginning of the planting season.
After death, a man's spirit may travel in the shape of a snake. In the bush, snakes may be killed, but if a snake enters a house, it must be given milk and meat since it is the spirit of an ancestor who can intercede with God on behalf of the living, in order to avert disease and other disasters. After death an old man or woman would be buried in his or her own hut, after which the descendants would move house; this was no hardship, since they were nomads anyway. Death 'infects' a house. The bereaved shave their heads, but when the New Moon appears, mourning ceases.

Trees

Africans know they depend on trees for firewood, without which their wives cannot cook their food. In some areas the goats can climb trees to eat the green leaves. The leopard lurks in a leafy tree to fall upon the Lonely traveller at night, and vipers do the same in Uganda. In some trees the bees make their nest where they store honey. Every big tree has a spirit. Some trees house many spirits. Whether a tree is a spirit or is inhabited by a spirit is not an easy question. The people will say: The tree has a spirit, or: in the tree there is a spirit. The spirit has a voice which the careful listener can hear and even understand if he knows the language of the spirits. This voice has to be preserved carefully by the drum maker. The boat-maker too, wants to keep the spirit of the tree in the wood so that it will protect the boatman against drowning in the treacherous rivers, when the tree has become a boat. The appearance changes, the spirit remains. Together in a forest, the trees have a collective spirit, powerful enough to be revered as a god.
Trees can be tricky. With their roots they can trip up the unsuspecting traveller, who will often believe that his enemy bewitched the root to do that. Thorny branches have the same function. In Namibia there is a tree that is believed to eat people: it catches them with its branches, opens its bark and swallows them up. Inside the tree, the victim can be heard singing a goodbye song to their relatives and friends. Only the Woodpecker can save them, for it possesses magic powers. For a fee, it will open the tree with its sharp bill. A man in Zaire was married to a tree. It gave birth to his children, a healthy boy and a girl who were human but knew the spirits of the forest and so became famous herbalists, for it is the doctors who need the trees for their medicines.

Sunbirds (Zimbabwe)

The sunbirds are two golden birds, which were found among the ruins of Zimbabwe about a century ago by one of the first explorers. They were probably discovered in the remains of a building which may have been the sun-temple of the ancient Bantu religion of the Shona people of Zimbabwe. These birds which form a pair, represent, it appears, two swallows, whose high and swift flight is praised by many poets of the old Bantu tradition, and about which the story-tellers relate that they can fly better even than the eagle.
The swallows, as is well known, are migrating birds. They arrive in southern Africa from Europe around the beginning of October, when spring is at its most beautiful and thousands of flowers are blooming. The sun is on its way up. The myth of the Shona people relates that the sunbirds belonged originally to the goddess Dzivaguru, the goddess of the earth, of the darkness of night, and of the rain clouds, of the pools and streams. The rainy season begins usually also in October, or later, when the gods are displeased.
We cannot live without sunshine, nor can we live without rain, yet we cannot have them at the same time, for rain and sunshine do not normally descend together. The great goddess Dzivaguru, whose name seems to mean Great Sun, ruled both heaven and earth in what may have been the oldest form of the Bantu religion, i.e. the religion of the peoples who speak Bantu languages. They have many myths in which the first man and woman on earth lived in darkness because the sun had not yet been discovered. The sun, the primal source of light, has to be captured so that people may have light to live by. The secret of the sun is that its light penetrates even in the darkest room, just as a swallow can fly through a house before anyone can catch it. Nosenga caught the sunbirds in his trap, and so day broke.

Malaika (East Africa)

A good spirit sent from heaven to help people. It can assume human form. The Malaika love people and will work for their benefit. God created them specially so that they might keep people on the straight path by sitting on their right shoulders and whispering in their ears what they should do or not do. The Malaika receive no food, because praying to God is their food. They have been created from the Light, Gods first creation, so they are entirely transparent and cannot even think evil, let alone do it. They always obey God, who will send an angel whenever he wishes to help a human being in distress. Normally angels are invisible, but once God sent the Angel Mikail to defeat a very powerful evil spirit. Mikail appeared in his full heavenly glory which was so dazzling that Karina was defeated by merely seeing him. She looked like an old woman after that encounter. Once Jiburili showed himself in his real form: standing astride the earth, his feet suspended above opposite horizons, he towered above the clouds. The angels are constantly guarding heaven against the attacks of the shaitani by throwing rockets (shihabu) at them, which we see as falling stars. Death too, is a malaika, who serves God by taking the souls of those God has decided must die now. He may also send angels to do battle against his enemies the unbelievers. The malaika wa vita, the Fighting Angels, will drop burning stones on the enemies.

Part1 : Africa from the beginning -What is Culture?

2009-03-30T17:31:00.000-07:00

Part I: Ancient Africa
from the beginnings BC / BCE

African Timelines Table of Contents History, Orature, Literature, & Film
Discussions on: African-Egyptian Question I & II | Problem of Sources |
Sacred Writing | Ancient Egyptian Writing & Literature | Ma'at & ethical principles|
African Orature | Power of the Word | What Is Culture? | Ethnicity, Language & Culture |
Can We Generalize about a Common African Culture?

5 to 2.5 million
BCE

Fossils, rocks, ancient skeletal remains have been uncovered in the Rift Valley and surrounding areas
Photo of an African rift (Univ. of Pennsylvania), 1 Apr. 2005:
http://www.sas.upenn.edu/African_Studies/Misc_GIFS/African_rift.gif
Evidence points to a common human ancestry originating in Africa from the emergence of a humanlike species in eastern Africa some 5 million years ago. From Hadar, Ethiopia, the 3.18 million year-old remains of "Lucy" were unearthed in 1974.
Resources for African Archeology (ArchNet-WWW Archeology), 1 Apr. 2005:
http://archnet.asu.edu/regions/africa.php3
Human Origins and Evolution in Africa (Jeanne Sept, Indiana Univ.-Bloomington), 1 Apr. 2005: http://www.indiana.edu/~origins/index.html
Early History , The Story of Africa , British Broadcasting Company [BBC] News: World Service, 1 Apr. 2005:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/africa/features/storyofafrica/index_section2.shtml

600,000 to
200,000

Wide spread of species across Asia, Europe, and Africa. Fire use develops. The earliest true human being in Africa, Homo sapiens, dates from more than 200,000 years ago.. A hunter-gatherer capable of making crude stone tools, Homo sapiens banded together with others to form nomadic groups; eventually nomadic San peoples spread throughout the African continent.
African Nomads (1) & (2) 1 Apr. 2005 : http://www.unesco.org/whc/exhibits/afr_rev/africa-c.htm
from UNESCO's World Heritage Centre : Africa Revisited - Nouveaux Regards Sur L'Afrique (In English and French) 1 Apr. 2005 :
http://www.unesco.org/whc/exhibits/afr_rev/africa-c.htm
Discoveries suggest Africa was the primary gene-center for cultivated plants like cotton, sorghum, watermelon, kola-nuts and coffee, and first site of the domestication of certain plants for food.
Agricultural Revolution Student Module ( Richard Law, Washington State U) , 1 Apr. 2005:
http://www.wsu/gened/learn-modules/top_agrev/agrev-index.html

25,000 to
10,000

Rock paintings of North and South Africa
African Art in Antiquity: Rock Art (Dr. Olu Oguibe, formerly of U of South Florida):
The Olu Oguibe Art History Class (1996-1999) , 1 Apr. 2005:
http://www.camwood.org/oluart.htm
Olu Oguibe Home Page
http://www.camwood.org/index.html
Student Internet Projects & Exhibitions
http://www.camwood.org/projects.htm

6000-4000

The River People emerge along Nile, Niger, and Congo Rivers (West-Central Africa); the Isonghee of Zaire (Republic of Congo) introduce mathematical abacus; and Cyclopian stone tombs built in Central African Republic area. Spread of agriculture south of the Sahara Desert supporting a growing population, which mastered animal domestication and agriculture, and forced the San groups into the less hospitable areas.

ca. 4500

Ancient Egyptians begin using burial texts to accompany their dead, first known written documents. Ancient Egyptians, who called their land Kemet (Land of the Blacks) and Ta-Meri (Beloved Land), were primarily agriculturists who, with the practice of irrigation and animal husbandry, transformed the Nile Valley into a vibrant food-producing economy by 5000 B.C. Their settled lifestyle allowed them to develop skills in glass making, pottery, metallurgy, weaving, woodworking, leather work, and masonry. In this latter craft, ancient Egyptian practitioners excelled in architecture, as the pyramids attest.

4000 to 1000

Ancient African civilizations of the Nile Valley are established & flourish.

Black Kingdoms of the Nile (Timothy Kendall, text; PBS Online's Wonders of the African World with Henry Louis Gates, Jr .: 1999: Episode I) http://www.pbs.org/wonders/fr_e1.htm
Prof. Peter A. Piccione's History courses webpages
(Univ. of Charleston, NC; formerly of Northwestern Univ.) - http://www.cofc.edu/~piccione/index.html
include Nubia, which the Egyptians called "Kash" or " Kush ," with capitals at Napata , then Meroe
Civilizations in Africa: Kush (Richard Hooker, World Civ, Washington State):
http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~dee/CIVAFRCA/KUSH.HTM

Ancient Egyptians traced their origins to the Mount Rwenzori range in East Africa known as "the Mountains of the Moon" ( see Hum 211 African Film description of the movie by that title) , and some accounts to "Ethiopia," a term variously designating land south of Egypt (the Upper Nile Valley), or the entire African continent. Thus, Nubia, Egypt’s southern neighbor with its own civilization, probably preceded ancient Egyptian (Kemet) civilization.

Explore the Wonders ( clickable map opens up the Wonders of the African World , Henry Louis Gates, Jr., 1999): Temples of Abu Simbel, Black Pharaohs; City of Jebel Barkal; City of Meroë, & Pyramids at Giza http://www.pbs.org/wonders/fr_wn.htm
Ancient Nubia (Freeman Institute, Severn MD; & Return to Glory Film Project Joel Freeman & Don Griffin, 2000): photo gallery & commentary:   http://www.freemaninstitute.com/RTGpix.htm
"Neither Goddesses nor Doormats: The Role of Women in Nubia" (Tara L. Kneller, Syracuse Univ., 1993), Don Mabry's Historical Text Archive: http://historicaltextarchive.com/sections.php?op=viewarticle&artid=23

By 2500

Centers of early civilization flourish in Mesopotamia, Egypt, northeastern India, and northern China.
Ancient Egyptian & Nubian Art (Michael C. Carlos Museum, Emory Univ., 2001):
http://carlos.emory.edu/COLLECTION/EGYPT/

"The Great Sphinx of Giza" ( Mysteries of the Nile, Nova Online Adventures, PBS Online-WGBS, 2000): "The most enigmatic of sculptures, the Sphinx was carved from a single block of limestone left over in the quarry used to build the Pyramids. Scholars believe it was sculpted about 4,600 years ago by the pharaoh Khafre, whose Pyramid rises directly behind it and whose face may be that represented on the Sphinx.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/egypt/explore/sphinx.html

The Great Sphinx (Getty Conservation Institute, 1990-1992):
http://www.getty.edu/conservation/activities/sphinx/index.html

Egyptian Artifacts Exhibit - Old, Middle, and New Kingdoms (Univ. of Memphis): http://www.memphis.edu/egypt/artifact.html
University of Memphis Institute of Egyptian Art and Archaeology home page:
http://www.memphis.edu/egypt/
World Cultures' Egyptian Timeline & links (Richard Hooker, WSU, 1997):
http://www.wsu.edu:8000/~dee/EGYPT/TIMELINE.HTM

AFRICAN-EGYPTIAN QUESTION I : Most of us in the West are familiar with ancient Egyptian civilization and its achievements, as one of the cradles of [Western] civilization.

Who Built the Pyramids? (Nova Online Adventure, PBS):
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/pyramid/explore/builders.html

Univ. of Chicago's The Oriental Institute: A Brief History links to a profile of John Henry Breasted , founder, "among the earliest to champion the role that the ancient Near East played in the rise of western civilization, . . .long before the classical civilizations of Greece and Rome": http://www-oi.uchicago.edu/OI/INFO/OIBH/OIBH.html#Breasted

It is important to remember that Egypt is in Africa: see Map (Nova Online Adventure, PBS):
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/pyramid/resources/worldmap.html

Ancient Kemet (as the ancient Egyptians called their kingdom, a term dating from ca. 3100 BCE) is also the cradle of Black African civilization. A subject of heated contemporary debate is the ethnicity and/or color of the ancient Egyptians, and Africanist scholars like Molefi Kete Asante and Abu S. Abarry observe that "the more [ancient] Egypt is seen as a society of significance to human civilization, the more its [black African] origins are disputed by some white scholars." They claim that racist sentiments have led "revisionist historians of the fifteenth to the twentieth centuries, the age of the European slave trade [and European colonization of Africa], …to discredit Africans," "to explain away the African base" of ancient Egypt, "and to accredit all African achievement to the presence of European genes." It is well to note that the ancient Greeks described the way the Egyptians looked to them: "The ancient Greek writers Herodotus, Diodorus Siculus, and Aristotle all testified …that the ancient Egyptians were ‘black-skinned'" (Asante and Abarry 3-4).

Debates on "Afrocentrism" (Molefi Kete Asante's term) and Martin Bernal's controversial "Black Athena" thesis:
Africa South of the Sahara: History: Afrocentrism (Karen Fung, Stanford Univ. Libraries)
http://www-sul.stanford.edu/depts/ssrg/africa/history/hisafrocen.html
Paul Halsall's Internet African History Sourcebook (scroll down to Contents: African History: General: Debates): http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/africa/africasbook.html

Statue of King Tut'ankhamun (Egyptian Museum, Cairo) : http://touregypt.net/museum/stat.htm

"Nefertari: Saving the Queen," by Jeffrey Levin, The Getty Conservation Institute Newsletter 7.3 (Fall 1992): Maat, the goddess of truth and cosmic order, protects Nefertari with her outstretched wings. Photo: Guillermo Aldana: http://www.getty.edu/conservation/resources/newsletter/7_3/nefertari.html

The Tomb of Nefertari (1986-1992): "The Getty Conservation Institute's first field project focused on the 3,200-year-old tomb of Queen Nefertari in the Valley of the Queens, near Luxor, Egypt" (J. Paul Getty Museum). "The Institute collaborated with the Egyptian Antiquities Organization to conserve the 3,200-year-old wall paintings in the Tomb of Queen Nefertari, and to develop a long-term maintenance plan for the tomb."
http://www.getty.edu/conservation/activities/nefertari/index.html
Art and Eternity: The Nefertari Wall Paintings Conservation Project, 1986-1992
http://www.getty.edu/bookstore/titles/artetern.html
Site: Valley of the Queens: http://www.kv5.com/html/data_queens.html

Faces of Ancient Egypt: Ancient Egyptian Art from the Oriental Institute Museum, David and Alfred Smart Museum of Art, Univ. of Chicago, 1996-1997:
http://www-oi.uchicago.edu/OI/MUS/INFO/Special_Exhibit_Brochure.html

World Cultures' Ancient Egypt Gallery
http://www.wsu.edu:8000/~dee/EGYPT/GALLERY.HTM

The African-Egyptian Question II: Asante and Abarry are among Africanist scholars who maintain that African "civilization as expressed from the ancient cultures of the Nile Valley [e.g. Egypt/Kemet, Nubia/Kush] , have tied together the diverse peoples of the [African] continent and the [African] Diaspora* in ways that distinguish Africans from Europeans or Asians"--although one must be careful not "to assume too much commonality" among African cultures and societies, each "unique, having developed its own orientation to the universe and the physical environment in its concepts of religion, science, art, and politics." Nevertheless, in "the practical experiences of African peoples" across the continent today these scholars trace the continuation of "ancient myths and beliefs in resurrection and life, reincarnation, matrilineality [lineage traced through the "mothers"], burial of the dead, the value of children, the ultimate goodness of the earth" (Asante and Abarry 111) , as well as reverence for the ancestors believed part of the living human community—a worldview integrating past and future into the present.

* African Diapora can be defined as the global community of Africans and peoples of African descent living outside of Africa.

PROBLEM OF SOURCES : Modern scholars must confront 2 major problems when trying to establish the ancient sources of African traditions: (1) loss of sources due to human or natural intervention (e.g., destroyed by invading armies or carried off to Western museums and private collections); and (2) undeciphered documents (e.g., the Merotic texts of ancient Meroe--which probably pre-dates ancient Kemet (Egypt)-- remain undeciphered).

2700 to 1087

Old Kingdom, Middle Kingdom , & New Kingdom of ancient Egypt & Upper Nile.
Map of Ancient Egypt, ca. 1650 BCE (Ralph et al's World Civilizations , Ch. 39; Examination Chapters , W. W. Norton):
http://www.wwnorton.com/college/history/worldciv/resource/ancegypt.htm

Life in Ancient Egypt (Walton Hall of Ancient Egypt, Carnegie Museum of Natural History, Pittsburgh, PA)
http://www.carnegiemuseums.org/cmnh/exhibits/egypt/index.htm
Chronology of Ancient Egypt :
http://www.carnegiemuseums.org/cmnh/exhibits/egypt/timeline.html
Gods & Religion:

Richard Hooker's Egyptian Timeline ( World Civilizations, WSU):
http://www.wsu.edu:8000/~dee/EGYPT/TIMELINE.HTM

Ancient Egypt and Nubia (Africa: Art of a Continent, Guggenheim Museum, New York):
http://artnetweb.com/guggenheim/africa/egypt.html

First pyramid of Djoser was built at Saqqara (Old Kingdom era, 2686-2182 BCE)

U of Memphis' clickable map of Step Pyramid Complex of Djoser ( ca. 2800 BC) http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/arth/zoser/zoser.html
Saqqara was the main necropolis of Memphis:
http://www.memphis.edu/egypt/saqqara.htm
Univ. of Penn's Map locating Saqqara in ancient Egypt :
http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/arth/zoser/08.gif

Old Kingdom-era master architect Imhotep was also chief physician, prime minister, teacher, philosopher, priest, & astronomer. Equated by the Greeks with their god of healing, Imhotep is regarded by many as the father of medicine.

Imhotep - 3rd Dynasty (from Who's Who of Egypt ):
http://touregypt.net/who/imhotep.htm
See U of Memphis' clickable Map of Egypt of ancient sites along Nile Valley:
http://www.memphis.edu/egypt/map.htm

ca. 2300- 2100

Heliopolis Creation Narrative of the Kemetic priests of On, and the Memphite Declaration of the Deities (carved on a granite slab carving at the order of Nubian King Shabaka, ca. 710 BCE, recopied from earlier papyrus version), are the earliest written human accounts of creation. U of Memphis' clickable Map of Egypt of ancient sites along Nile Valley, also locates Heliopolis: http://www.memphis.edu/egypt/map.htm

In the Memphis theology, the deity Ptah unites "heart and tongue" to create all "through utterance"—the spoken word. Creation narratives are found throughout Africa passed down through across centuries and generations through oral traditions (Asante and Abarry 12-13)

Egyptian Mythology , courtesy of Tour Egypt , Official Internet Site of: The Ministry of Tourism, Egypt, The Egyptian Tourist Authority :
http://touregypt.net/gods1.htm

Clickable pictographic "Map" of the Egyptian Underworld (Richard Hooker, World Civilizations, WSU):
http://www.wsu.edu:8000/~dee/EGYPT/UNDER.HTM

West African Cosmogony: Origin Myths of Mande, Yoruba and Cameroon (Franklin & Marshall College Anthropology 269 course):
http://www.fandm.edu/departments/Anthropology/Bastian/ANT269/cosmo.html

SACRED WRITING : "Ancient Africans believed that the deity Dhehuti [Thoth] invented writing…. Dhehuti, who became the Greek Hermes, was associated with wisdom and knowledge. Writing brought with it so much power and influence that the ancient Africans reserved the knowledge and skill for priests and kings. Mystery and magic surrounded the development of the art, because few people could appreciate the strange markings on papyrus" (Asante and Abarry 2) : "Although only a small portion of the population was literate, a great proportion of objects from Egypt are covered with writing,"according to UChicago's Oriental Institute. See Oriental Institute Virtual Museum (Univ. of Chicago):
Egyptian Gallery: Writing: http://www-oi.uchicago.edu/OI/MUS/QTVR96/EG/EgD.html

The Egyptians called their writing, medu netcher , or "the words of the gods" ("hieroglyph" is a Greek word which means "sacred writing"), according to Richard Hooker ( World Civilizations, WSU, 1996 ). See "The Words of the Gods: Hierglyphics": http://www.wsu.edu:8000/~dee/EGYPT/MEDU.HTM
& see Egyptian icons (Univ. of Pennsylvania): http://www.sas.upenn.edu/African_Studies/Egypt_GIFS/Egyptian_Icons_12112.gif

Later, throughout the continent, many traditional African cultures developed "secret societies, actually societies of secrets,…with their own scripts" (e.g., the Vai, Bambara, Benin, Bakongo, Peul, and Akan). "As symbol systems for sacred occasions, these scripts are often under the control of specially trained and consecrated priests" (Asante and Abarry 2).
ANCIENT EGYPTIAN WRITING & LITERATURE: Creative literature included poems, plays, and narratives, as well as the oldest religious and ethical texts which include the "Pyramid Texts" and the "Declarations of Virtues." Greek philosophy, as well as many of the basic tenets of the major world religions, were pre-configured in ancient Egyptian civilization," which early Greek philosophers would later acknowledge the debt that they owed to " Egyptian knowledge systems in which they were educated" (Mutere). However, it was not until the 19 th century, and the discovery of the Rosetta Stone, that scholars were able to decipher the ancient Kemetic writings on stone and papyrus. The Rosetta Stone now stands in the British Museum, London.

Illuminating World Cultures - Egypt (British Museum)
http://www.thebritishmuseum.ac.uk/world/egypt/egypt.html
Ancient Egypt Interactive Learning (British Museum)
http://www.ancientegypt.co.uk/menu.html
Writing - including the Rosetta Stone (British Museum)
http://www.ancientegypt.co.uk/writing/home.html
Dept. of Egyptian Antiquities (British Museum) "illustrates every aspect of ancient Egyptian cultures from Predynastic times (c. 4000 BC) down to the Coptic (Christian) period (12th century AD) and includes a significant amount of material from Nubia and the Sudan"
http://www.thebritishmuseum.ac.uk/egyptian/index.html

The Egyptian Exhibition: The Rosetta Stone (Hunterian Library, Univ. of Glasgow) offers photo & text: http://www.hunterian.gla.ac.uk/museum/egypt/rosetta.h tml
The Egyptian Exhibition : http://www.hunterian.gla.ac.uk/museum/egypt/egypt.html

MA'AT : the African ethical principles collectively embracing the values of truth, harmony, justice, reciprocity and cosmological order.
Ma'at: Goddess of Truth; Truth & Order (Richard Hooker, World Civilizations, WSU): http://www.wsu.edu:8000/~dee/EGYPT/MAAT.HTM
Kemetic texts "paint a powerful portrait of ancient Egyptian moral and ethical standards. Central to the ancient Egyptian ethos is the concept of Ma’at" (Mutere). Ma'at was the ancient Egyptian goddess who personified "truth" and "justice," and "is identified by a feather against which She weighs each person's soul in her hall of judgment. Egyptian priests would draw the feather of Ma'at on their tongues in green dye to give their words truth and creative power" (Mutere).

Image of judgment of the soul before Osiris :
http://www-oi.uchicago.edu/OI/MUS/HIGH/OIM_10486.gif
from Book of the Dead: http://www-oi.uchicago.edu/OI/MUS/HIGH/OIM_10486.html
(Ptolemaic Period, ca. 332-30 B.C. Papyrus and ink)
"The Book of the Dead was a collection of spells, hymns, and prayers intended to secure for the deceased safe passage to and sojourn in the other world."

The "ethical principles of Ma’at" shape "the key idea in the traditional African approach to life," recurring "in most African societies as the influence of right and righteousness, justice and harmony, balance, respect, and human dignity," according to Asante and Abarry (59) . Most traditional African religions perpetuate the "fundamental principles of harmony between humans, humans and the environment, and humans and the spirit world" (Asante and Abarry 59).

From the Carnegie Museum of Natural History:
"Of all the deities, the goddess Maat was the most important in perpetuating the status quo. The Egyptians believed that when the gods formed the land of Egypt out of chaos, Maat was created to embody truth, justice, and the basic orderly arrangement of the world. Maat personified the perfect state of the god-created world, and all that people had to do in order to live and prosper in the world was to honor and preserve Maat. On a national level, it was the king's responsibility to preserve Maat through daily offerings given at the temples. On an individual level, the goal of every Egyptian was to lead a honorable life that would allow entrance into the afterlife after death."
-" Gods and Religion, " Teacher's Guide to the Walton Hall of Ancient Egypt (1999)
Life in Ancient Egypt: Resources for Teachers:
http://www.carnegiemuseums.org/cmnh/exhibits/egypt/resources.html

Women's Rights: Ancient Egypt & the United States
http://www.womeninworldhistory.com/lesson6.html
Women in World History Curriculum (Lyn Reese, Director) :
http://www.womeninworldhistory.com/

ca. 1000 - 800

Bantu ("the people") migration spreads through sub-Saharan Africa (Africa south of the Sahara Desert), over some 2,000 years. Bantu, a linguistically related group of about 60 million people living in equatorial and southern Africa, probably originated in West Africa, migrating downward gradually into southern Africa. The Bantu migration was one of the largest in human history. The cause of this movement is uncertain, but is believed related to population increase, a result of the introduction of new crops, such as the banana (native to south Asia), allowing more efficient food production. Societies typically depended on subsistence agriculture or, in the savannas, pastoral pursuits. Political organization was normally local, although large kingdoms would later develop in western and central Africa.

The Iron Age South of the Sahara (Richard Hooker, Civilizations in Africa ,WSU)
http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~dee/CIVAFRCA/IRONAGE.HTM

Early in their history, the Bantu split into two major linguistic branches—the Eastern and Western Bantu. The Eastern Bantu migrated through present-day Zimbabwe and Mozambique, down to South Africa. The Western Bantu moved into what is now Angola, Namibia, and northwestern Botswana. Today, among the Bantu language groups, the most widely spoken Bantu-derived language is Arab-influenced Swahili, which is used as a lingua franca (a language used in common by different peoples to facilitate commerce and trade) by up to 50 million speakers on the eastern coast of Africa. Ethnic groups descended from the Bantu include the Shona, the Xhosa, the Kikuyu, and the Zulu, of the Eastern Bantu language branch; and the Herero and Tonga peoples, of the Western Bantu language branch.

Ethnologue: Languages of the World - Africa, 14th ed. (Barbara F. Grimes, ed., SIL [Summer Institute of Linguistics] International, Dallas, Texas, 2001.):
http://www.ethnologue.com/country_index.asp

750
– 600

Kush or Nubia (upper or southern reaches of Nile River) rules Egypt from capital Meroe; with metal technology, widened economic influence in sub-Saharan Africa
Civilizations in Africa: Kush
(Richard Hooker, World Civilizations,Washington State Univ.)
http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~dee/CIVAFRCA/KUSH.HTM

500

"The Aksumites were a people formed from the mix of Kushitic speaking people in Ethiopia and Semitic speaking people in southern Arabia who settled the territory across the Red Sea around 500 BC." Civilizations in Africa: Axum
(Richard Hooker, World Civilizations, WSU):
http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~dee/CIVAFRCA/AXUM.HTM

500

Ancient Nok culture thrives in forests of central Nigeria (to CE 200). Claimed by the Yoruba peoples as ancestors, the Nok are justly revered for their art and terra cottas .
Ancient Africa: The Nok, Mr. Dowling's Electronic Passport to Ancient Africa (Mike Dowling, 2001): http://www.mrdowling.com/609-nok.html
Nok Museum of African Arts, The Museum of African Arts @ Harlemm.com (1996), an electronic collection of works held by other museums and private collectors:
http://www.nokmuseum.org/aboutnok.html Re-check this link. LL-JUL1703

c. 300

" Rulers of Nubia established their capital at Meroë around 300 B.C., and the kingdom lasted there for more than nine centuries." Wonders: City of Meroe , Black Kingdoms of the Nile (Timothy Kendall, text; PBS Online's Wonders of the African World with Henry Louis Gates, Jr .: 1999: Episode I ) http://www.pbs.org/wonders/Episodes/Epi1/1_wondr4.htm

From
c. 250

"A Tale of Two Floodplains: Comparative Perspectives on the Emergence of Complex Societies and Urbanism in the Middle Niger and Senegal Valleys," AFRICAN ORATURE : Ancient writing traditions exist on the African continent, as shown earlier in this timeline, but most Africans are primarily oral peoples, and their art forms primarily oral rather than literary.. In contrast to written "literature," African "orature" is orally composed and transmitted, and often created to be verbally and communally performed as integral part of dance and music. Oral arts and traditions of Africa are rich and varied, developing with the beginnings of African cultures, and continuing to flourish today.

POWER OF THE WORD : In traditional African cosmologies, the spoken/performed word animating the creative process, is considered to have special powers to evoke spiritual and communal forces and ferment inner life. African oral arts often combine religious, artistic as well as social functions: e.g., to convey wisdom, teach ethics and social codes of conduct; teach religious beliefs and communal values, celebrate cultural heroes and revered ancestors, & explain the origins, history, and development of states, clans, and other important social organizations. Mutere calls African oral arts "art for life’s sake." Dr. Mutere's "African Culture and Aesthetics": http://artsedge.kennedy-center.org/aoi/history/ao-guide.html

African Spirituality and Philosophy:
http://www.geocities.com/CollegePark/Classroom/9912/africanspirit.html
from KAMMAASI / Sankofa Project Guide , 1999

African oral arts genres take many forms--including proverbs and riddles,
epic narratives, oration and personal testimony, praise poetry-songs, chants
and rituals, stories, legends and folktales.

African Proverbs, Sayings, and Stories: http://www.afriprov.org/index.htm
Moderator Rev. Joseph G. Healey, M.M., Dar es Salaam, Tanzania
Urban Ministries Support Group (UMSG) in Nairobi, Kenya

WHAT IS CULTURE? See WSU Learning Commons website What Is Culture? , the baseline definition of culture , and pursue links on important definitions, quotations, and discussions of culture.
Meanwhile consider an Anthropologist’s definition: "Culture consists of the abstract values, beliefs, and perceptions of the world" that shape people’s behaviors and are reflected in those behaviors." Shared by members of a society, "[c]ultures are learned, largely through the medium of language, rather than inherited biologically, and the parts of a culture function as an integrated whole." "People maintain cultures to deal with problems or matters that concern them. To survive, a culture must satisfy the basic needs of those who live by its rules, provide for its own continuity and an orderly existence…," "strike a balance between the self-interests of individuals and the needs of the society as a whole," and "have the capacity to change in order to adapt to new circumstances or to altered perceptions of existing circumstances" (William A. Havilland, Anthropology, 7 th ed, Fort Worth: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1994; p. 303].

ETHNICITY , LANGUAGE AND CULTURE: As Africa’s peoples established themselves and diversified in response to local conditions, they developed distinctive cultures, oral traditions and oral art forms. Africa’s hundreds of different ethnic groups are often defined by the language they speak, according to contemporary (especially Western) scholarly practice. Spoken African languages indigenous to the continent are variously estimated to number from 700 to 3000 .

Ethnologue: Languages of the World - Africa, 13th ed. (Barbara F. Grimes, ed., Summer Institute of Linguistics, Dallas, Texas,1996.): http://www.sil.org/ethnologue/countries/Africa.html

"Apart from Arabic, which is not confined to Africa, the most widely spoken African tongues are Swahili (an Arab-influenced Bantu language) and Hausa, each with more than 20 million speakers today. Several languages (often inaccurately termed dialects simply because they have few users) are spoken by only a few thousand people. On the average an African language has about 200,000 speakers; only a few dozen languages have more than 1 million speakers." Scholars group African languages into four language families: Afro-Asiatic, Nilo-Saharan, Khoisan, and Niger-Congo. . . . [A language family is defined a group of related languages assumed to derive from a common origin, and often subdivided into branches composed of more closely related languages.] At least some of the African linguistic families are believed to have a history of more than 5000 years" ( Microsoft Encarta 97 Encyclopedia ).

Of related interest: "Where Do Languages Come From?" by linguist Merritt Ruhlen (Exploratorium Magazine Online 23.1):   http://www.exploratorium.edu/exploring/language/index.html
Pathway: Back Issues / Language Volume 23 Number 1:
http://www.exploratorium.edu/exploring/back.html    http://www.exploratorium.edu/exploring/index.html

Regarding the question of cultural/"genetic" identity, see Prof. Gene Gragg's provocative 1996 summary of the Oriental Institute's AfroAsiatic Index Project: "Around the same time that they were discovering Indo-European, scholars were becoming aware of the existence of other major families like Semitic (uniting, among others, Akkadian, Aramaic, Hebrew, Ugaritic, Arabic, South Arabian, and Ethiopic)....To make matters worse [for historical linguists trying to establish whether languages are "genetically" related], evidence has been accumulating that Semitic is not an isolated family, but is itself part of a superfamily, probably older than Indo-European, which stretched over large parts of Northern and Eastern Africa and Western Asia. This family, sometimes still called 'Hamito-Semitic,' but now more often 'Afroasiatic' or 'Afrasian' includes-besides Semitic-Egyptian, Berber, Cushitic (a heterogeneous group of dozens of languages, including Somali, centered around the Horn of Africa), Omotic (a large group of languages in Southwest Ethiopia), and Chadic (more than a hundred languages, including Hausa, spoken over a large sub-Saharan area centered around Lake Chad). Relationships are still being established within the last four groups, many individual languages are very poorly known, and new information is coming in on an almost daily basis." ( "ETYMOLOGY AND ELECTRONICS: THE AFROASIATIC INDEX," [Oriental Institute, Univ. of Chicago]

CAN WE GENERALIZE ABOUT A COMMON "AFRICAN CULTURE" GIVEN THE CONTINENT'S GREAT DIVERSITY?
Yes, argue some Africanist scholars. Consider that there are ways other than language by which common ethnicity and cultural identity can be defined: for example, by a group's belief in a common origin (e.g. the Mande peoples trace a common origin to Sundjata Keita, legendary 13 th century founder of the Mali Empire: see Part II: African Empires ), and increasing cultural similarities among groups can develop over centuries of contact and exchange. Kwame Gyeke points out (1) that "a number of Africa’s ethnic groups are small" and their "cultures have been so greatly influenced by those of neighboring large groups that they…share the culture of the large groups"; (2) that "a seemingly distinct ethnic group may in fact…be a subdivision…of a larger ethnic group"; and (3) that common cultural patterns extend across African states because "arbitrary and unrealistic boundaries drawn a century ago by Africa’s [European] colonial masters" found single ethnic groups [bound by kinship, language, and cultural ties] in two or more neighboring countries (in Asante and Abarry 297-298) . Thus, Gyekeye and others believe it is possible to generalize, cautiously and respectful of local and regional cultural diversity, about common and pervasive features of African cultures, In any case, some oral arts genres, such as praise poetry, are common to most African peoples (see J udith Gleason, ed. Leaf and Bone: African Praise-Poems. New York: Penguin Books, 1994 ). Kofi Awoonor, respected African poet and oral arts historian, calls Africa’s oral poetic tradition one of the oldest and most continuous of all African oral arts.
Kofi Awoonor: http://www.uflib.ufl.edu/cm/africana/awoonor.htm
African Writers: Voices of Change (Africana Collection, George A. Smathers Libraries,

NEXT > PART II: African Empires AD/CE 1st - 15th centuries

COCC Home > Cora Agatucci Home > Classes > HUM 211 Home > African Timelines > Part I: Ancient Africa

African Timelines Table of Contents History, Orature, Literature, & Film
Part I | Part II | Part III | Part IV | Part V
You are here: African Timelines Part I - Ancient Africa (BC/BCE - From the Beginnings)
URL of this webpage: http://web.cocc.edu/cagatucci/classes/hum211/timelines/htimeline.htm

African knowledge on video-Pyramids in W. Africa

2009-03-30T06:32:00.000-07:00

Sankofa writes.......

These are just a few out of many really good educational videos on african history. Videos packed with substance.
Knowledge that can answer a lot of question that has plagued the senses.

Sit back and enjoy..and absorb this learning....things not normally expressed.

Em-Hotep*
-----------

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3QZhQ-mrkE&feature=channel

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gaqudrS0o-I&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K8UHeE9Riqw&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e13LSzOeG1U&feature=related

"Know ThySelf!

HEEDING JOHN HOPE FRANKLIN EDUCATIONALWARNING!

2009-03-28T08:26:00.000-07:00

Sankofa writes........

Today we morn the lost of a great Professor of Legal history at Duke Law Unniversity. A intelligent Black Man that wore many hats, and has seen many things in his most blessed 94 years. A loyal friend. He had a vision, he saw the importance of earning an education. Ultimately, he was a doer of the powerful words he spoke.
His life his jouney and his great teaching, gives all of us in the black community a chance to obtain a richer understanding of our culture. What I appreciate most of all he left us with an important message about the school system way of given test especially (SAT). He proclaimed that the standardize test that public schools give is not the best way to measure academic ability.
Let us pay close attention to our trail blazers, and their word.s And be attentive to their journey the trail they have walk......we can learn more than you can imagine.
R.I.P. Great Teacher*
---------

Heeding John Hope Franklin's education warning

It gnawed on John Hope Franklin that racial segregation was replaced by class stratification in underfunded public schools. (Derrick Z. Jackson/Globe Staff)

March 28, 2009

JOHN HOPE FRANKLIN left us with a warning. The most important was on education. In a 2000 telephone interview, I felt his then-85 years see the over the line from his home in Durham, N.C. To him, the use of standardized tests in our public schools to measure academic ability had gone way too far. He said it reminded him of 1935, when he walked from his historically African-American Fisk University, to white Vanderbilt University to take a test for a graduate studies program at Harvard.

"The professor at Vanderbilt literally threw the SAT at me," said Franklin, the historian who died this week at 94. "He was such a poor, crude critter. When I walked out of the building, I passed a black janitor who told me that I was the first black person he ever saw even being allowed to sit in that building."

Franklin made it to Harvard, earning a master's in 1936 and a doctorate in 1941. He lent his historical perspective to Thurgood Marshall's legal team to help persuade the Supreme Court to outlaw segregated schools in 1954. But it gnawed on him that racial segregation was replaced by class stratification in underfunded public schools. The crude way out for policy makers is to throw tests at the children.

"Yes, you want to know if a student can add or subtract or read in a certain way," Franklin said. ". . . What is much more important to know than a test score is a student's family life, personal life, their socialization, and so forth to help you determine what their abilities are and might be. I think the tests are stacked against any group that has disadvantages. The tests come out of laboratories where people have had certain kinds of experiences, say at prep schools and elite colleges, and have had various kinds of activities and social groups that are not part of an underprivileged student's experience."

In 2005, Franklin elaborated on the lack of willingness to equalize education to the Trotter Group of African-American newspaper columnists. "It's amazing," he said. "I sat at a table with three of our university presidents not too long ago. I thought they might discuss scholarship and the future of academic life in this country or something like that. But they were talking about how to make it into Class A athletics. . . . I'm not opposed to that, but these three great talents, or talented three people in position of leadership, are concerned with these matters and not with certain other matters . . . to assist us in moving to the next level. As long as we are concerned, not with those matters, but with other matters which it seems to me are inconsequential, I despair for the country."

Franklin's despair was lessened with the election of the nation's first African-American president. The day after Franklin died, President Obama told a town hall that in No Child Left Behind a test "doesn't even measure progress." He said teacher accountability "doesn't mean just a single, high-stakes standardized test. It also means that we're working with teachers to . . . maintain discipline in a classroom, what's the best way to get kids excited about science. Giving them the time and the resources to improve."

On curriculum, Obama added, "Instead of it being designed around sparking people's creativity and their interest in science, it ends up just being, 'Here's the test, here's what you have to learn,' which, you know the average kid is already squirming enough in their seat. Now they're thinking, 'Well, this is completely dull. This is completely uninteresting.' And they get turned off from science or math or all these wonderful subjects that potentially they could be passionate about. So what we want to do is not completely eliminate standardized tests. . . . We just don't want it to be the only thing."

Somewhere, Franklin is smiling. He went from being the first black person to sit in a Vanderbilt office to seeing the first black person run the Oval Office. There is no standardized test to measure how the nation went from there to that.

H. Rap Brown-Political Quotes

2009-03-22T10:51:00.000-07:00

Spirit of Sankofa writes.........
Back during the (CRM) Civil Rights Movement, many of our Intelligent Black Men (IBM)....arose to the challenge to bring about change. One in the persons of H. Rap Brown. This very passionate brother, was the director of SNCC- student nonviolence committee.
Rap was against all forms of oppression especially those of us who had been most oppressed in this country. Mainly Blacks!
He later joinned the Panthers and later joinned the Nation of Islam. He wanted to be with the movement of those of the same mind-set, those that knew leadership movement only comes about during the evolutionary prosess. He also articulated, the system of political ideaology ,is only a phase of revolution. Evolution is a revoltionary process....therefore there is a great need for a change within the system. There are many things written about this brother, but the media just like with Malcolm, Martin, Angela D. etc....have had their name dragged thro the muck, in hopes it would cloud the judgement of our people. Clouding the great works, these men and women have done to try to enlighten a people.! As Rap quoted......We can not expect the media to tell us what is really going on in our neighborhoods, We need to do it ourselves!
Peace and enjoy some of his quotes!
--------

H. Rap Brown

An old African leader says about leadership, he says that leadership should never be shared; it should always remain in the hands of the dispossessed people. We will lead the revolution.
H. Rap Brown

And understand: class differences will not save you.
H. Rap Brown

Black people must address itself to the causes of poverty. That's oppression in this country.
H. Rap Brown

But black people fall for that same argument, and they go around talking about law breakers. We did not make the laws in this country. We are neither morally nor legally confined to those laws. Those laws that keep them up, keep us down.
H. Rap Brown

Class structures are a luxury that we cannot afford.
H. Rap Brown

Everybody in the black community must organize, and then we decide whether we will have alliance with other people or not, but not until we are organized.
H. Rap Brown

I say violence is necessary. It is as American as cherry pie.
H. Rap Brown

If America don't come around, we're gonna' burn it down.
H. Rap Brown

In terms of the revolution, I believe that the revolution will be a revolution of dispossessed people in this country: that's the Mexican American, the Puerto Rican American, the American Indian, and black people.
H. Rap Brown

No such thing as a Dixiecrat.
H. Rap Brown

One of the lies that we tell ourselves is that we're making progress; but Huey's chair's empty.
H. Rap Brown

See, it's no in between: you're either free or you're a slave.
H. Rap Brown

See, justice is a joke in this country, and it stinks of its hypocricy.
H. Rap Brown

So black people all across this country are uniting. They must unite, and they must organize themselves.
H. Rap Brown

The man does not beat your head because you got a Cadillac or because you got a Ford; he beats you because you're black!
H. Rap Brown

The only politics in this country that's relevant to black people today is the politics of revolution... none other.
H. Rap Brown

The only thing that's going to free Huey is gun powder.
H. Rap Brown

The poverty program was not designed to eliminate poverty.
H. Rap Brown

There is no such thing as a black middle class.
H. Rap Brown

There's no such thing as second class citizenship. That's like telling me you can be a little bit pregnant.
H. Rap Brown

Em-Hotep*

The Fuzzy Wuzzy Angels of Papua New Guinea

2009-03-13T17:36:00.000-07:00

Spirit of Sankofa writes.....

Many of blacks don't understand where The Black Liberation colors red, black and green came from. This article explains it all. After reading this information, most of you may agree. The Liberation flag of red, black and green holds a sighificance. So .powerful, that I beieve even the Black Panthers felt so passionate about. These brave brothrrs sporting fro's in1942 , long before the 60's and 70's...were strong and brave.

Em Hotep -Translated Welcome in Peace.
---------i
The Fuzzy Wuzzy Angels of Papua New Guinea

1942 was a terrible time when an invasion of Australia by the Japanese Imperial Forces looked almost inevitable.

Diggers were fighting and dying on lonely jungle tracks in almost impenetrable jungle in mountain ranges so high that it was very cold at night time.

It was then that we found a new set of friends. The men of the tribes of Papua and later of New Guinea flocked to help the Aussies.

This is the medal that Australia struck as as token of thanks for the local civilian porters, the Fuzzy Wuzzy Angels.

Some fought independently because the Japanese mistreated them, something that the civilian Australian Patrol Officers had never done. Many were murdered by the Japanese. Naturally this built up a huge degree of loathing for the invaders. Some fought in organised Units and their story is told elsewhere on this website. However, they acted a bearers, mostly. They carried food and ammo forward and the wounded back. By so doing they created a legend. They were often praised as being as "gentle as a bush nurse".

Australia owes them a Debt of Gratitude that is immense.
Many Aussies would not have eaten or had ammo at the front without their help. These blokes are Chimbu.

Many wounded Diggers and Doughboys would not have made it back with out their help.

This is a paper brochure or flyer distributed in PNG to attract Police Boys (native police men) back to work after the Japs had been pushed back. It is written in "pidgin", a simplified version of English that started in China and has since spread around the world.

LUKIM NUMBA (look at the number)

TAIM JAPAN I KUMAP (at the time Japan came) PLENTY POLISBOI I KOAIT LONG KANAKA (many police boys went into the bush (long kanaka)) . GUT PELA PASIN. (Good fella, person to do this) . NAU GUVMAN SIGAUT IM OL KAM PUTIM NUMBA GEN (Now the Government wants them all to come and put his number (badge) on again (go back to work)) . YU KAM PAINIM MIPELA I NOGAT TROUBLE. (You can find me, I won't make trouble for you) . GUVMAN 1 TOK (The Government is part of your family)

THE "FUZZY WUZZY" ANGELS

THE "FUZZY WUZZY" ANGELS
Many a mother in Australia
When the busy day is done
Sends a Prayer to the Almighty
For the keeping of her Son.
Asking that an Angel guide him
And bring him safely back
Now we see those prayers are
Answered on the Owen Stanley track.
Tho' they haven't any halos
Only holes slashed through the ear
Their faces marked with tattoo's
And scratch pins in their hair.
Bringing back the badly wounded
Just as steady as a hearse
Using leaves to keep the rain off
And as gentle as a Nurse.
Slow and careful in bad places
On that awful mountain track
And the look upon their faces
Made us think that Christ was black.
Not a move to hurt the carried
As they treat him like a Saint
It's a picture worth recording
That an Artist's yet to paint.
Many a lad will see his mother
and the husbands, weans and wives
Just because the Fuzzy Wuzzies
Carried them to save their lives.
From Mortar or Machine gun fire
Or a chance surprise attack
To safety and the care of Doctors
At the bottom of the track.
May the Mothers of Australia
When they offer up a prayer
Mention these impromptu Angels
With the "Fuzzy Wuzzy " hair.

by NX6925 Sapper H "Bert" Beros of the 7th
Division, 2nd AIF; it was actually written on the Kokoda Track/Trail in 1942

A MOTHER' S REPLY
We, the Mother's of Australia
As we kneel each night in prayer
Will be sure to ask God's blessings
On the men with fuzzy hair.
And may the Great Creator
Who made us both black and white
Help us to remember how they
Helped us to win the fight .
For surely He, has used these
Men with fuzzy wuzzy hair
To guard and watch our wounded
With tender and loving care.
And perhaps when they are tired
With blistered and aching back
He'll take the Yoke On himself
And help them down the track.
And God will be the Artist
And this picture He will paint
Of a Fuzzy Wuzzy Angel
With the Halo of a Saint.
And His presence shall go with them
In tropic heat and rain
And he'll help them to tend our wounded
In sickness and in pain.
So we thank you Fuzzy Wuzzies
For all that you have done
Not only for Australians
But for Every Mother's Son.
And we are glad to call you friends
Though your faces may be black
For we know that Christ walked
With you - on the Owen Stanley track.

More on Page 2

http://www.diggerhistory.info/pages-conflicts-periods/ww2/pages-2aif-cmf/fuzzy-wuzzy.htm

Africa and America 30-BC 1453

2009-03-07T10:01:00.001-08:00

BECK index

Africa and America 30 BC-1453

Africa
Mayans
Toltecs and Aztecs
Incas
North America

Africa

Let us begin this volume in the cradle of humanity in Africa. Egypt and North Africa in 30 BC were part of Mediterranean culture and the Roman empire and so will be discussed later. About two thousand years ago the spread of iron-working gradually brought Africa south of the Sahara desert out of the stone age. Farming could be done more easily, although the tsetse fly in central Africa prevented the use of draft animals for plowing. Population began to increase especially among those speaking Bantu languages. The coast around the horn of eastern Africa was described by a Roman official from Alexandria in the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea about 100 CE. Goods were traded for ivory and tortoise shells at Adulis, the port city for Axum, and along the coast to the south slaves, incense, and Indian cinnamon could be obtained. Natives at Rhapta were described as pirates of great stature ostensibly under Arab rule. Bananas and yams were brought to Africa by Indonesian traders, who settled on the island of Madagascar about the second century CE. With the exception of Bushmen and a few others in central and southern Africa who continued to hunt and herd, by the 8th century CE the iron age had spread throughout Africa.

Strabo wrote that Ethiopia was so peaceful that the Romans only needed three cohorts there. However, when the Roman army in Egypt was busy with a war in Arabia, the Ethiopians (Kushites) took over Syene, Elephantine, and Philae, pulling down statues of Augustus Caesar. In retaliation for this raid near the Nile's first cataract, a Roman army led by Petronius plundered the Kushite city of Napata in 23 BC, sending a thousand prisoners to Caesar. In the next generation Kushite king Netekamani and his queen Amanitare built temples at Naga, and King Sherkarer, probably their son, commemorated a military victory with an inscription. Ethiopian civilization founded a new dynasty of kings at Axum soon after 50 CE.

In the 4th century CE the Axumites conquered Kush. After Himyarite king Dimnos massacred some Greek merchants in revenge for the Roman empire's ill treatment of Jews, Abyssinian king Andas invaded Yemen and killed Dimnos. Andas had vowed if he were victorious, he would become a Christian; in reponse the Roman Emperor sent a bishop from Alexandria. Christianity was made the state religion when his successor King Ezana was converted by the captured Syrian Frumentius, who had become his tutor and later was appointed bishop of Axum by the bishop of Alexandria. Axum king Ezana devastated the once powerful empire of the Meroitic Kush. Apparently the royal family and military class of Meroites exploiting the masses of workers had not proved stable. Desiccation caused by over-grazing and soil erosion was another factor in the decline of Meroe, as the desert expanded. The army of Axum under Ezana made the caravan trade routes safer, destroying his enemies by sacking cities, taking prisoners, ruining crops, and confiscating livestock. Ezana was succeeded by his son Elesboas.

Another Jewish Himyarite named Dhu Novas overcame the Ethiopian garrison and proclaimed himself king in 519. He persecuted Christians and tried to exterminate all Ethiopians who would not accept Judaism. In 523 a siege of Nejran resulted in the massacre of 280 Christians. Two years later Axum king Ela Atzbeha led a large army of Abyssinians to defeat and kill Dhu Novas, establishing a tributary Christian king named Esimiphaios. In 531 Roman emperor Justinian sent Julian to ask the two Red Sea kingdoms of Ela Atzbeha and Esimiphaios for help against the Persians, but they did little. The Ethiopian church followed the Egyptian Copts in adhering to the Monophysite doctrine. When their trade routes to Yemeni, Jewish, and Greek merchants were cut off by Muslim invaders in the 7th century CE, the Ethiopian economy stagnated. In 702 Muslim Arabs occupied islands off the Eritrean coast to attack pirates.

As Isis worship at the Philae temple had been ended by imperial decree, Christianity grew rapidly in Nubia after Byzantine empress Theodora sent the Monophysite Julian there in 543; she and the Egyptians made sure that the rival Melkite mission was delayed even though her husband Emperor Justinian opposed the Monophysites. Thus the Nobadae (Nubians) and their king Silko became Monophysite Christians, and with the help of a Byzantine general they made the Blemyes adopt the same faith. Julian's work in Nubia was continued by Philae bishop Theodoros; Longinus went as far as 'Alwa, where he baptized the king and his people in 580.

The Mukurra kingdom was attacked by Arabs in 641, and in the peace treaty of 651 the Nubians agreed to tolerate a Muslim mosque and provide 360 slaves annually to the Muslim imam in exchange for some supplies not mentioned in the treaty, which enabled Nubians to co-exist next to Muslim Egypt peacefully for six centuries. The Nubian church was greatly strengthened when Merkurios became king in 697. When Copts were persecuted in Egypt about 745, Nubian king Kiriakos demanded that imprisoned Alexandrian patriarch Khael be released and, according to a Christian author, invaded. In 836 Nubians made a treaty with the Caliph of Baghdad, and they occupied southern Egypt in 962. At the end of the 10th century the Ethiopian king, because of a conflict with the patriarch of Alexandria, asked Nubian king George II to send a bishop, while many Christians from Egypt fled to Nubia.

In 1171 Nubians attacked Egypt and were counter-attacked two years later by Saladin's brother Turan-Shah. A century later in 1272 Nubian king Dawud captured the Arab trading post at 'Aydhab; this also resulted in attacks by Mamluk Egypt which captured prominent Nubians and helped Shakanda defeat Dawud II in a struggle over the Nubian throne. Shakanda agreed to pay annual tribute to the Egyptian sultan; Nubians not becoming Muslims had to pay a poll tax; and it was reported that 10,000 captives were sent to Egypt as slaves. Conflicts in Mukurra with Mamluk troops engaged 40,000 tribesmen seeking booty, and in 1290 Nubian king Shamamun captured the Mamluk garrison at Dunkula; Sultan Kala'un, busy with the last crusaders, agreed to a treaty. When Sanbu became king at Dunkula, Mukurra officially converted to Islam and made the cathedral a mosque in 1317. Despite Nubian efforts to regain their independence led by Kanz al-Dawla and Banu 'l-Kanz, Dunkula was destroyed, and the monarchy collapsed before the end of the 14th century; by the next century 'Alwa had also been overrun by pastoral Egyptian Arabs.

Ethiopian expansion led to conflicts in the 10th century,

Who are the Copts?
The word Copt is an English word taken from the Arabic word Gibt or Gypt. The Arabs after their conquest of Egypt in 641 A.D. called the indigenous population of Egypt as Gypt from the Greek word Egyptos or Egypt. The Greek word Egyptos came from the ancient Egyptian words Ha-Ka-Ptah or the house or temple of the spirit of God Ptah, one of the major ancient Egyptian Gods. The word Copt or Coptic simply means Egyptian, however the Muslim population of Egypt calls themselves Arabs. In contemporary usage, the word Copt or Coptic refers to the Christian population of Egypt.
Synopsis:
The Coptic people are the descendants of the ancient Egyptians. The known history of the Copts or Egypt starts with King Mina or Menas the first King, who united the northern and southern kingdoms of Egypt circa 3050 B.C. The ancient Egyptian civilization under the rule of the Pharaohs lasted for approximately 3000 years. Many Copts accepted the teachings of Christianity, possibly because the ancient Egyptian religions believed in life after death. This is evidenced by their elaborate efforts to preserve the bodies of the dead by embalming or mummification. Like other early Christians throughout the Roman Empire, the Copts suffered from the persecution perpetrated against the new religion. Many Copts shed their blood in testimony for Jesus Christ. Saint Mina or Menas is one of the major Coptic saints. He was martyred 309 A.D. The Copts history continues through the present as Father Mina the Anchorite led the Coptic Orthodox Church, who was named as Pope Cyril the 6th 1971 A.D. He is considered to be a contemporary saint and among the great leaders of the Coptic Orthodox Church. The Coptic or Egyptian history continues from circa 3050 B.C. through the present. Many cotemporary Copts continue to carry ancient Egyptian names such as Mina, Ahmos, and Ramesses for men, Isis, Nofert, Nefertiti, and Nitocris for women. Two examples are noteworthy about the influence of the ancient Egyptian civilization on the western civilization. The first example is that the present western or Gregorian calendar has its roots in the solar ancient Egyptian calendar. The second is that the modern name of the science of Chemistry gets its name from the ancient name of Egypt, or "Chimie" in the Coptic language.

A people without the knowledge of their past history, origin and culture is like a tree without roots
Marcus Garvey

KING OYO NYIMBA KABAMBA IGURU RUKIDI IV
H.R.H. Oyo Nyimba Kabamba Iguru Rukidi IV,
reigning Omukama of Toro

The accession of King Oyo to his father's throne marked the beginning of a challenging and exciting period for the people of Toro. At the infant age of three-and-one half years old, King Oyo of Toro earned a place in the Guinness Book of World Records as the youngest reigning monarch.

King Oyo with his mother, Lady Best K. Olimi, and his
Princess Royal, Nsemere Komuntale.
Being a minor, King Oyo was aptly placed under the guardianship of several capable individuals, to ensure his smooth maturation into his role as cultural leader of his people. Among his guardians are H.E. Yoweri Museveni, President of Uganda; Prince James Mugenyi, his paternal uncle, Princess Elizabeth N. Bagaaya , his paternal aunt and Godmother; and the other kings.
King Oyo with his uncle and guardian,
Prince James Mugenyi.
King Oyo in the Empango (moon) Ceremony.
A relaxing moment: King Oyo playing
with his puppy that was given to him by
Mrs. Janet Museveni, wife of
President Yoweri Museveni of Uganda.
King Oyo's kingdom, still suffering the devastation of 26 years of nonexistence and desecration, is in dire need of total reconstruction in all cultural, economic and human aspects. An ambitious development plan is in effect, encompassing several major development and restoration projects.
A people without the knowledge of their past history, origin and culture is like a tree without roots
Marcus Garvey

Black History 365

Henri Christophe revoltionary, 1st Black King on the western hemisphere

2009-03-07T08:46:00.001-08:00

This particular brother was born into slavery. Became a revolutionary, not only that but elevated into the fist Black King on the western hemisphere. (Haiti)
He was born of a fierce type of people that would fight for their freedom.
The brutality of ther french was a liilte too much to bear ,which lead Christolpher to take action. The three principle figures in the Haitain Revolution were...Toussaint ,L'Overture, Jean Jacaue Dessalines and Christophe. He wasamong 545 Free Negros known as the Fontages Legion. Figjhting to liberating their brothers who weren?t free. He was an extrodinary indivdual....read more and enjoy the knowledge.
Hotep KnowThyself
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October 6

Henri Christophe On this date in 1767, Henri Christophe was born. He was a West African slave and became the first Black king in the Western Hemisphere (Haiti).
Christophe was born on the island of Grenada, a British colonial acquisition. His parents were slaves brought to Grenada with thousands of other West Africans to work in the sugar industry. These slaves in the sugar industry were known for their fierce and determined nature to resist the institution of slavery. The revolutionary nature of Henri Christophe has its roots deeply embedded in his African ancestry. Christophe’s obstinate, argumentative, and obdurate nature led his father to sell his services to a French ship's captain as a cabin boy, before had reached the age of ten.
The ship's captain sold Henri to a French sugar planter in the French province on the island of Saint Dominique called Haiti, which was a Carob Indian name meaning "the land of the mountains.” The brutality of the French planters led to much discontent among the slaves in Haiti. These acts of brutality were witnessed by Christophe and set the stage for his role in the Haitian revolution. He participated in the American Revolutionary War in the French contingent. As a sergeant, he was among the 545 Haitian free Negroes known as the Fontages Legion. Fighting to make men in another country free from oppression created a thirst for freedom within Christophe.
In June 1794, the Spaniards and the English who wanted to share the wealth created by the sugar industry threatened Haiti. The Spaniards constituted the greatest threat and a battle for control of Haiti ensued. The three principal figures in the Haitian revolution were Toussaint L'Overture, Jean Jacques Dessalines, and Christophe. Toussaint joined the French forces against the Spaniards, became a general of the slaves, and marched to several villages, liberating his brothers who immediately joined his forces. After distinguishing himself in battle, Christophe was made a sergeant by Toussaint and later made a general by Dessalines.
The French forces were defeated and Haiti was declared an independent republic on November 27, 1803. The Republic of Haiti was divided into two states, and Christophe was elected president of the Northern State in February of 1807, and Alexandre Petion was elected president of the Southern Republic of Haiti in March. The division between the republics was to last for a decade. President Christophe set out to improve all aspects of life in the Northern Province. One of his major concerns and preoccupations was the defense of his country from internal and external aggression. He had a huge fortress built on a mountain peak overlooking the Le Cap harbor, 3,000 feet above the sea. The citadel was named "la Ferriere," which means the blacksmith's pouch.
The huge stronghold, which still exists today, was built in the shape of a ship, covering 16 acres, with some of the walls soaring 140 feet high. The education of the Haitians was Henri Christophe's second priority. He solicited teachers from the United States and Britain to build schools. This ultimately raised the former slaves to a literacy level unequaled in the Western Hemisphere. To continue the improvement of Haitian life, Christophe decided to create the first Black kingdom in the Western Hemisphere. At a council of state on March 28, 1811, he declared Haiti a kingdom, with himself as King Henri I. Christophe offered the ruler of the south, Alexandre Petion, the opportunity to be absorbed. Petion refused and the relationship between the two men and their respective countries remained strained until Petion's death in 1818. In August 1820, Christophe suffered a stroke that left him partially paralyzed.
When the news spread of his infirmities, the seeds of rebellion began to grow. On October 2, 1820, the military garrison at St. Marc led a mutiny that sparked a revolt. The mutiny coincided with a conspiracy of Christophe's own generals. Some of his trusted aides took him to the Citadel to await the inevitable confrontation with the rebels. Christophe ordered his attendants to bathe him, dress him in his formal military uniform, place him in his favorite chair in his den, and leave him alone.
Shortly after the attendants left his side, Christophe committed suicide by shooting himself in the heart with a silver bullet on October 8, 1820.
Reference:
The Shomberg Center