The Global Perspective of John Henrik Clarke

Books by John Henrik Clarke

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The Global Perspective of John Henrik Clarke

By Obadele Williams

Intellectually and academically he can be firmly placed beside Edward Wilmot Blyden, Alexander Crummell, Henry McNeal Turner, Martin R. Delany, Paul Cuffee, J.E. Casely-Hayford, George Padmore, W.E.B. Du Bois and Aime Cesaire because of his unswerving love for African people worldwide throughout his lifetime.

As a student of political affairs he keenly kept abreast of freedom struggles in Africa, the Caribbean, South America, the Pacific, the U.S. and wherever Africans were engaged in the struggle against imperialism, colonialism, and genocide. His years in Harlem brought him into contact with future participants and leaders of independent Africa—Osagyefo Kwame Nkrumah, Agnostino Neto, Edward Mondlane, Amilcar Cabral, Jomo Kenyatta, Tom Mboya, Oginga Odinga, Samori Machel, and others.

He provided vital scholarly critical research on African resource development as well as advice on how to negotiate with former colonial adversaries. He often warned that power people never train powerless people to take their power away from them. He often said, "Your enemy will never be your friend." From his wealth of knowledge on European wars against Africans he would advise leaders to steer clear of alliances with enemies. He knew that once an enemy or conqueror always an enemy. John Henrik Clarke realized based on study and activism that the function of knowledge was to be used as a tool to liberate a people. Dr. Clarke's writings or magnus opus as a scholar, journalist, and activist motivated Africans worldwide to rediscover their cultural heritage. The African World community was his classroom where he would not waste a single moment teaching about Africa—his favorite pastime. It was during the early 20s that John Clarke began actively to study and write about the continent. He would go on to publish his first short stories in the Urban Leagues' Opportunity: A Journal of Negro Life. Stories concentrating on the social and political issues affecting his people of the time appeared such as, "Santa Claus Is A White Man," Leader of a Mob," "Prelude to an Education," "The Other Side" and "The Boy Who Painted Christ Black.”

The fire that his new knowledge of Africa ignited in him caused him to find his way into journalism. He often told the story of John G. Jackson's advice to stop writing all those poems and short stories and start writing historical essays. Jackson's advice to Clarke caused him to use the pen as a weapon in the battle to reclaim Africa's place in world history.

It was during these years (1933 - 1940) that he would help raise funds for Ethiopia's battle against Benito Mussolini during the Italian-Ethiopian War. During this time he began to publish his other creative writings in the Crisis, and Harlem Quarterly. They would be stories titled, "Under the Bridge," "The Betrayal," "Man Of God," and "Revolt of the Angels." John Henrik Clarke was among a generation of fiction writers, such as Rudolph Fisher, Chester Himes, Langston Hughes, John Oliver Killens, Zora Neale Hurston who sought to capture the cultural memory of their people through the literary genre by valuing the beauty in their own stories.

After receiving advice from John G. Jackson to write about Africa's history, he learned to write in a way that would make his chosen topic of Africa accessible, exciting, and attractive to a wide readership of lay and scholarly people. Clarke would begin writing and working for the newspaper Freedom, published by the Council on African Affairs under the guidance of Alphaeus Hounton, Paul Robeson, and John Oliver Killens. While still researching and spending whatever time he had at the 135th Street Library in Harlem, he would also become an editor and founding member of Harlem Quarterly Magazine.

As the 1950s approached and progressed, many African Americans searched for a way for Africa to become their new home. Always a student/activist of Pan-African Affairs Clarke became a staff lecturer in African Studies and African American Studies at the New School for Social Research. In 1956 Clarke would invite his mentor Professor William Leo Hansberry to present a series of lectures on African Culture and Civilization.

With the McCarthy era in full swing, Clarke traveled to Ghana in order to feel the warmth of his homeland. Almost immediately he began to send challenges with writ of pen toward European myths about Africa. He began to coordinate and write a series titled, "The Lives Of Great African Chiefs," for the Ghanaian Evening News and serialized in the Pittsburgh Courier (1957-58) in the United States. It was these inspiring, pioneering stories that gave historical validation to Africa's ability to govern and lead itself. He realized that African children, educators, and leaders needed to know about their own indigenous heroes and leaders that Europe strategically sought to wipe from African memory.

John Henrik Clarke would also utilize the latest newly emerging scientific documentation regarding Africa. In 1959, he would let the African World know of the discovery of Zinjanthropus Boisie in Kenya by L.S.B. Leakey of 1.5 million years old. This finding would confirm, at that time, that Africa was the home of early humankind. Along with military warfare in struggles for liberation, John Clarke came to understand that documentation, both scientific and cultural, must go hand in hand. Another strategy in his quest for an African based education was to critically examine the emerging new writers of independent Africa. His book reviews are numerous.

One of his greatest gifts has been helping to give back to Africa its history, thereby challenging the assumptions of racists worldwide that Africa's people were somehow removed from, as he often said, the respectful commentary of history. Upon returning to the U.S., he began to write for Freedomways Magazine, eventually working his way up to become Associate Editor. In 1961, anticipating the rising consciousness of U.S. Blacks he published in Freedomways, "The New Afro-American Nationalism." He would state that this is not a new phenomenon but was a continuation of the African Freedom struggle worldwide. While there he would coordinate and seek publication of Richard B. Moore's classic article, "Africa Conscious Harlem." He foresaw the "Black Is Beautiful" phase of the Black Freedom Struggle.

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posted 27 April 2007